


The Talk

by andeemae



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, LITERALLY, and embarrassing siblings, gadge - Freeform, just what you'd expect from having the talk, reproductive talk, uncomfortable family discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3783544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siblings aren't always as helpful as they think they are. Vick gets to try matchmaking, Rory gets to be a pain, and Madge and Gale just get to be embarrassed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Vick is sitting at the counter with a slight grin on his face as Madge slides the cup of tea across the way to him.

She narrows her eyes in suspicion, "What're you grinning about?"

He'd been in a particularly good mood since his arrival after school. Madge had helped him with his arithmetic homework and the entire time he'd been smirking. It wasn't that amusing a lesson.

"Nothing."

She takes the seat next to him and pokes him in the side, eliciting a giggle, "No one grins like that for nothing."

"I just," the grin slips a little, "I just figured out why you don't want to marry Gale."

That again. She'd thought they'd left that conversation back over a month ago, before the Quell announcement.

"Oh," she's fairly certain, by the way his dimples deepen, that she does not want to know his theory.

"Yep," he takes a sip of tea.

She refuses to ask, he'll tell her if he wants, and he most definitely wants to. He fidgets and cuts his eyes to her expectantly.

"You wanna know?" He finally asks.

Really? She doesn't. It's bound to be something embarrassing. Last time he'd thought it was because of the whipping and that he'd told her Gale was hairy.

Madge props her chin in her hand against the counter and looks at him. She takes a sip of her tea to steady her nerves.

Let's get this over with.

"It's 'cause you don't want to have sex with him."

Her eyes widen as she chokes on the tea.

She bangs her balled fist against her chest, coughs painfully, gasps for breath.

"What?"

He eyes her warily, stays quiet until he's certain she's finished her fit, then he shrugs.

"I went to the library, at school today, because Rory said married people have to have sex. You know, to have babies, and I didn't really know what it was. I mean, I know," he looks up with his wide gray eyes, "I just didn't know."

Relationships, the physical part, aren't exactly secret in the Districts. Most live in small houses with thin walls, it's inevitable children would know from a young agesomething of it. It wasn't part of the school curriculum, though. The less the people of Panem knew of their bodies and how they functioned the more children they would produce, the more warm bodies for work and sacrifice.

Parents didn't always have a great education on the subject and so their children, like their parents and grandparents before, were left with raging hormones and only their basic instincts to guide them. Madge had learned some of the more colorful aspects ofthose relationships watching Capitol programming. She'd been so scared she too had taken to the school library.

She and Vick had probably read through the same pitiful book with ancient photos of genitalia and cartoon drawings of the mechanics of intercourse.

"I know it looks gross, but people keep doing it, so it can't be that bad," he tells her as she buries her face in her arms. This is quite possibly the most awkward conversation she's ever been involved in since her own conception. The only one that even came close was when she found Mr. Abernathy passed out in one of the guestroom showers with his hand down his pants.

Actually, no, the two conversations were about equal in their sheer mortification.

"Maybe he can shave…"

"Vick," she finally forces her crimson face up to look at him. "Vick, it isn't that-"

"So you do want to have sex with him?"

She snaps up, "That's-I didn't-I-no-I mean-ye-no-I-"

She's dissolved into a sputtering mess and he seems to find it amusing. His delight in her apparent distress is the first thing she's ever found to tether he and his oldest brother together.

She collapses back onto the counter.

His warm hand pats her on the head.

"The book said it releases eno-fins, eno-dor-ins, en-oh," he sighs, "things in your head that make you happy. You and Gale can get married and then you can make each other happy."

She wishes he could stay so wonderfully sweet and naive, a child with such an uncomplicated understanding of the world forever.

It's so simple for him. He has the problem of two people he clearly cares deeply about, both sad, both a little broken, and he has the solution. Marriages are happy, so marriage will make them happy. He was apparently even willing to put aside his own little crush on her to make she and Gale happy. Little guy even did the research to make sure he had solid scientific evidence to back him up.

If only it really were that simple.

Madge finally sits up, looks him over.

"Vick, Gale and I aren't getting married and we aren't going to…uh…make each other happy."

"But Katniss and Peeta are getting married. So Katniss can't marry him and make him happy." He looks like his whole little plan is falling apart, and he'd worked so hard. "And I like you, Madge. I want you to be in our family."

Vick looks heartbroken. He'd had it set on this plan working. That the two idiots he was setting up seeing just how brilliant it was.

Madge leans over and kisses his forehead, "We're still friends, Vick."

"Friends can go away. If you were a sister, you couldn't."

That's not true though. Her mother and Aunt Maysilee were proof of that.

"Anyone can go away." She pulls him into a hug, "I'll try my best not to, though, alright?"

He nods into her shoulder.

"Will you think about it at least?" He looks up with his sweet face. She can't tell him no.

"Fine," she finally sighs.

#######

Gale collapses face down onto his too small bed.

His back is killing him. The strain of work in the mines and his still healing wounds is wearing him down.

He doesn't even get the weekly release of the woods anymore, that would ease the pain.

He's about to take a quick nap before their abysmal dinner, washing up properly be damned, when he feels the heaviness of little eyes on him.

One eye pops open and he finds Vick perched, cross legged, across from him on his own tiny bed.

"What?" Gale croaks. He's tired and dirty and hurting, he hopes it isn't help with homework. He wishes, not for the first time, he had his own room.

"I-uh-I," Vick sputters. Gale's tone must've startled him, though he hadn't meant it to.

Rolling over he gives him a somewhat forced smile, "What is it, Vick?"

"I know how to fix your problem."

Oh, which one? Gale wants to say.

The one where they're nearly starving and have no new clothes? The one where their mother has to work for that louse Haymitch? The one where he can't go into the woods to maybe lessen their suffering?

"Well?" This ought to be good.

The boy seems to calm some, takes a deep breath, then begins rattling.

" -endor-endorfinsandtheygetreleasedduringsexandsoyouneedtomarrymadgesoyoucanmakeeachotherhappywithendor-rophins."

He's out of breath when he finishes, glowingly happy with whatever the hell it is he just spouted off.

Gale raises his eyebrows. Out of that mess he'd only picked up two words fairly distinctly: Sex and Madge.

"What about sex and Madge?" He sits up, feeling a little perverted. He would only hear those two words.

Vick's mouth hangs open for a minute, he obviously hadn't thought he'd have to repeat himself.

"He thinks you and Undersee should get married so you can have sex and that'll make you happy," Rory explains. He's been watching the entire exchange from the top of he and Vick's bed, a look of endless amusement on his face. "They don't have to get married to have sex, though, Vick. That's what the slag heap is for."

Gale gives him a sharp look. He's too young to know about the slag heap, and he definitely shouldn't be telling Vick about it.

"Madge is too-too-too something for that nasty slag." Vick doesn't seem to have the word for what exactly Madge is that disqualifies her from a visit to the slag heap, though he has a look of absolute certainty about the matter.

Gale runs his hand over his face then lets it settle on his neck, massaging the sore muscles.

"Vick, I'm not marrying, or having sex, with Undersee."

Rory scoots to the end of the bed. He has a grin on his face that Gale knows means he isn't going to like what comes out of his mouth. "Not marrying her I understand, let's face it, she's way too good for you-"

Gale has half a mind to smack him on the head for that. Then he continues and he thinks he might just strangle him instead.

"-but not wanting to have sex with her? I've seen some of the girls you've taken to the slag heap, Gale, she's way better. Since when are you so picky?"

What exactly Rory is playing at, other than being an irritating shit, Gale doesn't know, but at the moment he doesn't care. He puts his hand on his middle brother's shoulder and gives him a heave, knocking him off the bed.

Vick simply watches.

"Will you please think about it, Gale?" Vick bites his lip, "Then Madge could be our sister. I know she said anyone can go away, but it's harder when they're family right?"

He looks so small, so like the little boy Gale is working so hard to keep him as.

He's about to say 'fine', placate him, when something he said causes the sluggish gears in his brain to whirl to life.

"What do you mean 'she said anyone can go away'?"

Surely he hadn't-

Vick shrugs, "When I talked to her about it and told her she could be our sister and not go away, she said anyone can go away."

Gale presses his fingers to his temples. "You-" he can't even formulate the sentence, "-talked to Undersee about having sex? With me?"

Vick nods giving Gale a look that plainly says why wouldn't I?

His mouth starts before his brain can catch it, "What did she say?"

A great disappointment settles over Vick's features, "She said 'fine', she'd think about it."

Rory pushes himself up from the floor, "Probably take more than one go. Selling Gale to her is going to be a lot harder than her to Gale."

Gale takes his foot and gives Rory a little shove, pushing him back to the floor. "Hey!"

Gale flops back onto the bed and attempts to suffocate himself.

He really wishes he had his own room.


	2. The Talk, pt 2 or Uncomfortable Family Discussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale thinks the conversation will die after his attempted self smothering.

Vick says nothing more, just looks moderately disappointed, and Gale threatens to lock Rory in the wood box to shut him up.

When they get to the dinner table he expects to have a quiet, though unsatisfying, dinner, hearing about school and Posy playing with Lady the goat.

"So are they gonna do it?" Posy whispers rather loudly to Vick.

Not you too. He groans and puts his elbows to the table, covers his face with his hands. It's bad enough dealing with his brothers, Posy's just a baby really.

Vick gives her a sad little smile and shakes his head.

Posy huffs and turns her head to Gale, a look of utter disgust on her little face.

"Who is doing what?" Hazelle asked as she placed the last glass of tepid water in front of Rory.

"Not doing," Rory clarifies with a shit-eating grin. "And Gale and Madge."

Someone is visiting the wood box. Gale glowers at Rory who only smiles serenely back.

"What are Gale and Madge not doing?"Hazelle asks again.

Posy pouts, "Getting married."

"Oh," Hazelle's forehead creases a little. "That's, uh, too bad."

She glances at Gale as if to say what prompted this?He just shakes his head.

"I just wanted them to get married so they could make each other happy," Vick mutters into his thin soup.

Hazelle pats his head, "Honey, getting married doesn't necessarily make someone happy."

He sighs, "But that's not what the book said."

And so it begins. Gale braces himself for the worst.

"What book?" Their mother asks hesitantly. She seems to sense this conversation is about to head down a path even she, with four children, can't predict.

"At the library."

"There are an awful lot of books at the library, Vick, you'll have to be a little more specific."

Rory pipes in, a little less than helpfully, "He means the one about sex."

Of all the things she might have expected, hearing that her youngest son had been reading up on sex was clearly not among the contenders. Her mouth drops just a hair and she looks to Gale.

What is going on here?

"The book said sex makes you happy cause it makes your body release stuff that makes you happy and Gale and Madge need to be happy too so I thought they could get married so they could have sex and be happy."

Gale glances at his mother. She's standing with a look caught somewhere between horror and hilarity, she'll either burst into tears or burst out in laughter.

Her mouth moves but no words come out, her youngest son's latest foray into match making and chemically induced euphoria has rendered her mute.

"Vick," she finally starts, "two people can't get married just so they can have sex."

Rory slurps down some soup, "I told him that. Told him all they had to do was go to the slag heap." He grins over Gale snottily, "Gale knows the way. I've heard some of the girls at school say so."

"Rory!" She snaps. She isn't dense. Hazelle is perfectly aware her son is no angel and even more aware he's been visiting the slag heap regularly since he was just shy of fifteen. That, however, doesn't mean she wants her youngest two exposed to that knowledge.

"What's at the slag heap?" Posy asks innocently.

Vick gives her a most serious look, "It's where people go to have sex."

She nods sagely. "Oh, okay." She looks perplexed, "Is Gale going to take Madge to the slag heap for sex, then?"

This is getting ridiculous. Gale sets his head against the table and begins gently banging his forehead against the wood.

"He can't take Madge to the slag heap, Posy. She's Madge. That place is too filthy for her," Vick tells her. He turns to Gale, still face down on the table, "Her room is really nice. If you marry her maybe she'll let you have sex on her bed."

"I bet it's a lot softer than ours, Gale," Rory smirks as he lifts his soup to his lips.

It is, Gale actually knows that for a fact. She's put him it to have him sleep off a night of drinking after the Quarter Quell announcement. Most comfortable night of sleep he's had since he was fifteen and had gotten too tall for his own mattress. He isn't about to tell his already dirty minded brother that he has any knowledge of what Madge Undersee's room looks like or how soft and inviting her bed is, though. There's enough fuel on this fire as it is.

He tosses his spoon at Rory's head instead. Unfortunately he ducks and it misses him.

"Gale isn't having sex with Madge. Not at the slag heap, not in her bed, and," Hazelle turns to Rory, cutting him off before he can say it, "no, not in his bed either."

His middle brother looks sorely disappointed for not having gotten to throw that little nugget in.

"What if she says 'yes', though," Vick asks. He looks at her with his wide eyes.

She gives him a stern look. "I forbid you from asking her."

Vick bites his lip.

Gale looks to his mother and arches his eyebrows. Yeah, that look means exactly what you think it does.

Her hand raises up and covers her eyes, as if not seeing her children will make their antics go away. "Oh, Vick…"

"She said she'd think about it," he tells her. As though that will make the situation any better.

Hazelle goes to her seat and sinks down. She rests her elbows on the table then begins massaging her temples. She's probably formulating how to explain to her son that you cannot ask a girl to have sex with your brother and how she's going to apologize to said girl for the proposition.

"I told her Gale might even shave, 'cause he's so hairy, you know?"

Because that'll seal the de-wait, what?

"You told her what?" Gale can feel the heat rising in his face, climbing up his chest and over his cheeks.

"Well you are hairy, Gale."

"It's normal to have hair!"

"Not in those places!"

Posy looks confused, "What places? What places, momma?"

Hazelle just shakes her head and sighs, she's lost control of the situation. Rory is grinning and eating his soup. The evening entertainment is an absolute delight to him.

"He has it all-"

"Vick!" Hazelle stops him from telling Posy just where those places were, complete with hand gestures and a look of revolt.

She looks to Gale. It's obvious they're going to have to have a talk with Vick about the changes his little body is soon to be running through, most likely Hazelle. Gale isnt' in the mood, nor does he foresee any time in the immediate future when he will be. Gale had suspected, sadly, that Vick's little crush on Undersee was the beginning of that ugly phase.

They need to do it before Rory has the chance, though. No telling what lies he'd try to fill Vick's head with otherwise.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Vick huffs. "Madge didn't seem upset when I told her about it. I just told her he'd shave 'cause she's so smooth."

Gale tries to find it funny that his little brother somehow managed to have an entire conversation about having sex and body hair in private places with the Mayor's daughter, but somehow the fact that it had mostly centered on him made the whole thing less than amusing. The fact that he's also somehow certain Vick made it sound as if he's some kind of sasquatch only makes it worse.

No, the fact that Undersee apparently didn't seem to mind, according to Vick, anyway, was what made the whole thing worse.

Now Gale was going to be plagued with all too pleasant nightmares of soft, smooth skin, and a squishy warm bed. He really didn't have time for that crap, no matter how nice a distraction it was.

Hazelle starts to tell Vick and Posy to 'just finish your dinner, please' and Rory continues to smirk at the whole situation. Gale goes to retrieve his spoon, smacking Rory on the back of the head with his open palm for ducking it.

#######

"So," Vick looks a little mortified, "Madge is all hairy, too."

Gale runs his hand over his face. He does not want to talk about Undersee's hair, not the golden locks on her head or the soft fluff she undoubtedly has anywhere else on her person.

It makes him uneasy because he enjoys thinking about it a little too much. Damn hormones.

Vick chews his tongue, "Huh, the book didn't say that."

That book apparently left quite a bit up to the imagination, it seemed.

He thinks for a minute, "Does it go up insi-"

"No."

God, why didn't his mother have this conversation.

Gale wishes, for the millionth time, that his father was around. He'd been so good explaining this crap to Gale, and Gale had passed the knowledge, almost by rote, to Rory. Rory had also seemed to pick up a few of the unmentioned things watching Gale and listening in on he and his friends, something Gale now wishes he'd been a little more vigilant about not letting happen.

Vick was more curious though, asked too many questions Gale didn't have the answers to.

"Doesn't it hurt her," he looks terrified, for Madge and probably every other girl Gale's ever had any sort of relationship with.

Doesn't seem to. Gale thinks mildly. Probably not the answer Vick needs though.

"Well, babies come out there too, right? And babies are pretty big."

Vick raises his hands in the air, approximating the size of whatever baby he's seen most recently's head size. His eyes widen. "I guess you're right."

They sit there on Gale's bed, Vick pondering the wonders of the female body while Gale tries desperately not too, in silence.

"Mom and Dad did it four times," Vick finally says, looking both amazed and disgusted.

Gale is perfectly certain his parents did that far more than four times, there were nearly five years between he and Rory after all, it isn't something he likes to mull over.

Finally, Vick sighs, "So…do you really not want to have sex with Madge?"

Gale presses his fingers to his eyes.

His body, the faithless thing, most certainly wouldn't turn it down.

His heart beat a little bit faster and everything that was supposed to react to a pretty girl reacted just as it should. He'd caught himself one too many times, in the dark mines during their all too brief lunch breaks, imagining her brightness, her soft hair and her soft body, little pink lips saying his name…

His mind, however, knew that was cruel. Undersee, Madge, with her sad little smiles and her big eyes and her willingness to let his brother embarrass her to crimson, deserved better than to be his warm body. His empty comfort as he and Mellark waged their little battle over Katniss' heart.

Really, it would be easier to hate her, but like Mellark, she was just too damn easy to like.

She was soft and sweet and she really was too good for him. Rory had been right about that.

"She likes you, Gale." Vick looks down at his hands, "She won't say it 'cause you like Katniss, but she does. I know it. And Katniss is with Peeta."

Madge likes him, but maybe not in that way, probably not. He was an ass to her, or had been, for months.

Vick's head leans over on Gale's shoulder, "Just don't hurt her, please?"

She's his friend, his after school help, someone who makes him not feel quite so useless, and Vick is just perceptive enough to know she might have a crush on Gale. And just perceptive enough to know Gale has both the potential and the propensity to hurt her. He'd even tried to curb it with his little proposition. A way to make them happy and, maybe a little selfishly, he is only ten, to keep Madge from fleeing his life. Gale wouldn't hurt her if they were married, he wouldn't break her heart or his vows.

Vick, Gale decides, is far more deviant than Rory could ever hope to be.

"I'll try," he mutters into his brother's hair, giving him a little kiss while doing so.

He hopes he isn't lying.

#######

Madge's mother glides in, like the wisp she is, after Vick leaves. She gets in the icebox and pulls out some butter, then reaches in the bread bin for a roll before settling on the stool Madge had recently vacated.

Madge is cleaning out the cups, the housekeeper is off taking care of her grandbabies, both sick with the measles, so she tries to keep things from getting too backed up. Beside, Mrs. Oberst would have kittens if Madge let the teacups sit in the sink too long.

"They'll stain," she'd once told Madge gruffly.

She's nearly done, finishing up on the second one, when her mother, airy as ever speaks.

"Are you going to have sex with the Hawthorne boy?"

Madge nearly drops the cup out of her still wet hands.

This isn't happening.

Her mother must've been listening at the door. She's practically a spirit anyway, Madge shouldn't be surprised she ghosted her way down stairs to eavesdrop. She tries to ignore the question. Maybe she'll forget it, drift back into her own world.

"Did you hear me, love? Are you going to have sex with him?"

Madge finishes drying the cup, continues ignoring her, and is deciding if she can just walk out of the room and make her mother think she'd been hearing things when her mother sighs.

"You'll want to find special condoms, love. I'm allergic to latex, you might be too. Brake out in a terrible rash. All itchy. You wouldn't want that down th-"

"Mother!" Madge spins on her heals. She won't, can't, have this conversation with her. It's beyond mortifying. "I'm not having sex, with anyone."

She looks mildly confused, "Are you sure? The little boy, he's such a smart thing, he made a good point."

"I'm positive."

Her mother frowns, her nose wrinkles up a bit. Then she nods serenely, "I'll get your father to buy the special ones, just in case you change your mind."

Oh, god, no.

"Mom, no, please."

But her mother is off, humming to herself and buttering her roll. As though she hadn't just endorsed her daughter having sex by offering prophylactics.

Madge flops herself across the counter, covers her head. This day couldn't possibly get anymore humiliating.

Then, as if somewhere in the world there was a cruel overlord, a singular being whose sole purpose was to make Madge's day just that much more of an exercise in embarrassment, the back door opened, and in stumbled Mr. Abernathy.

Madge raises her head just enough to glare at him. He kept coming by to raid her father's liquor cabinet because Peeta had tossed all his.

He smirked at her, "What's your problem, Pearl?"

Madge is about to tell him to go dry out and leave them be, he isn't entitled to her father's drinks, when her mother pipes up.

"She's deciding whether to have sex with the Hawthorne boy or not."

If having this conversation with her mad mother wasn't bad enough, now Haymitch Abernathy was in on it.

He looks at Madge, horrorstruck. "What?"

"He's rather handsome, isn't he? Very tall."

Haymitch snatches the roll and butter knife from Madge's mother, and before Madge can say a word in her own defense, he gives her a hard look.

"Don't even think about it, missy. He's no good. Got a reputation, I have ears, I hear everything." He finishes buttering the roll and hands it back to Madge's mother before brandishing the butterknife at Madge like a pointer, "Probably eaten up with all kinds of venereal diseases. Herpes and Chlamydia, ebola, crabs, bubonic, the clap!"

Madge was fairly certain at least a few of those either weren't real or weren't transmitted in the way Mr. Abernathy was implying they were.

"Calm down, Mr. Abernathy, I'm not," she closes her eyes, loath to say it, "having sex with Gale. I'm not doing that with anyone."

He seems unconvinced, "You better stick to your guns, kid. I don't care what he tells you, what half baked thing he tries to convince you to let him in your panties, you don't let him get so much as a fing-"

Madge makes a strangled noise and throws her hand out. "Don't! Please! I-I'm not-we aren't-no!"

"Oh, Haymitch, don't be crude," her mother takes another bite of her roll.

Madge feels a little faint. A sex talk with Mr. Abernathy is surely a punishment from above.

He gives her mother a sharp look, "I'm trying to help your girl here, 'Tilda. No telling what lies that boy has fed her. I was a teenager once, I know how those little bastards minds work."

"Look, I'm not doing anything with Gale or anyone else. No one."

"Even mouth things," he starts. "Get you down on your kne-"

Madge puts her fingers in her ears, she sincerely does not want to know where that sentence is going.

She turns when she hears the backdoor clatter shut. Her father surveys the situation with a frown.

"Everything alright?"

Mother and Mr. Abernathy have lost what little sense they had left.

"Daniel! Tell your daughter she can't have sex with Hawthorne," Mr. Abernathy tells him before Madge so much as opens her mouth.

Her father looks at Madge and raises his eyebrows. He knows she's no closer to having any kind of relations with Gale Hawthorne, or any boy in the District for that matter, than she is of rocketing to the moon. He turns and gives Mr. Abernathy a shrewd look, "I'll assume you're talking about the oldest one, the other two are a bit young and only one has even hit puberty. So," he gives Madge a little smile, "Madge, please don't have sex with the Hawthorne boy, it seems to be upsetting Haymitch."

He breezes by her, "I just came to pick up some papers. I forgot them this afternoon after lunch."

Haymitch is sputtering, "This isn't a joke, Danny boy!"

Madge is given a reprieve from his sudden parental attentions as he grumbles off to follow her father.

She's about to sneak off, her mother is vacantly eating the last of her roll and has apparently forgotten the whole horrible conversation, when her father and Mr. Abernathy reappear.

"-knocked up, or fleas, or Dutch elm disease, or-"

Her father holds up his hand, "I appreciate the concern, Haymitch, but I feel I've raised a bright enough girl that she won't be getting pregnant or a tree fungus, no matter what she does or does not do or who she chooses to do that with."

Madge gives him a grateful smile, he at least isn't making this into a production, won't entertain the wild imagination of a mad Victor. He kisses the top of her head and heads out.

Mr. Abernathy isn't finished.

"Or parvo!" He shouts out the door after him.

"That's a dog disease! My god, what exactly do you think he does?"

He turns back to her, "You never know, sweetheart."

Madge buries her face in her hands.

"Mr. Abernathy, please, I'm not going to do anything with him," she hears her own muffled voice mutter. She spreads her fingers over her eyes, "He doesn't even like me."

His eyes soften and he reaches out, gives the end of her ponytail a tweak.

"He's fool then, and just one more reason not to let him get his filthy hands on any part of you." He takes her hand from her face, "Don't let him hurt you, Pearl."

She gives him a faint smile, "I'll try."


	3. The Talk, pt 3 or The Final Embarrassment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge would never be able to look at Mr. Abernathy again. His extensive, and obviously incorrect, knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases and his seemingly endless list of increasingly bizarre, and what she could only pray were fictitious, sex acts had given her nightmares.

Her mother had offered her latex-free condoms, and Vick had assured her that despite sounding unappealing, sex was apparently not too bad because people continued to engage in it.

Yes, the day of 'The Talk' was a red-letter day in Madge Undersee's life. It stands to reason it could only get better. Right?

#######

When Gale saw her on Sunday at the Victors' Village, he was teaching snares and she was bringing her father's papers from the Capitol, they seemed to come to a silent agreement to make no mention of the whole ordeal and to avoid each other at all costs. She almost seemed to not even register that such an event had even occurred and it baffled him.

Haymitch had passed out, and after helping drag him to his couch Madge had gone with Peeta to look at something and Gale to Katniss'. After Prim had pulled Katniss away for some help with her goat, Gale had decided it was time to head home.

He let Katniss' door slam and banged down the back steps. He stopped, frozen in place, one foot hanging off the bottommost step, when he saw her.

They'd done it all day, made it into the homestretch, could've avoided each other for a whole week more and possibly let the awkwardness abate, but of course that couldn't happen.

"Is Katniss coming?" Madge squeaks out.

He shook his head, "Helping Prim."

Which is just my luck.

They were going to the same way, no way to avoid it, they'd just have to deal with it.

They started down the road, stony silence stretched out between them. Gale didn't mind silence, and he didn't think she did either, but it was suffocating.

Finally, it got to be too much. Something had to be said.

"So…Vick, he, uh, came home the other day and he-"

She'd stopped in the middle of the road. Her face, moment before so passive, was now frozen in terror.

Surely she couldn't have not realized Vick would go home and blabber his little plan to his brother? It involved him. He was central to its success.

Judging by the way her mouth dropped and her eyes widened just a hair, though, it really hadn't occurred to her.

"No. Please tell me he didn't."

Her pale cheeks were turning an intense shade of scarlet and her breath was catching.

Gale tried not to laugh, "Yeah, he did."

She covered her face with her hands, "Oh, god."

He thought about giving her a comforting pat on the back, siblings could be real pains in the ass sometimes, and she was getting a firsthand experience at just how big a pain that really was. Touching her, though, in any way, shape, or form, at the moment, seemed like a very bad idea.

She might get the wrong idea.

"I thought I put it to rest," she groaned into her hands.

"Yeah, well, he's persistent."

They just stood in the middle of the road, him rubbing his neck and her with her face buried in her hands, for several very long minutes.

"Look , I don't know what he was thinking." Gale made a little gesture at her then to himself with a chuckle, "Not gonna happen."

She nodded emphatically. As though the thought of them together was the most repulsive thing she'd ever had to imagine. He felt a little offended, made a small grimace at the slight.

Her lips puckered in a frown, "Why are you laughing?"

His irritation deepened and so did his look, "I'm no-well, I am, it's a little funny, right?"

"Absolutely hysterical." She took a deep breath, the color continuing to burst on her cheeks, "I'm not that bad. Surely you've done a little bit worse?"

He had, in fact, done quite a bit worse. Though not nearly as often as everyone thought. There must be another 'Gale Hawthorne' out there with a very impressive bedpost. Gale suspects Thom had something to do with that wild rumor.

Surely he hadn't offended her? She was the one bobbing her head like an idiot, like he was the absolute worst thing she could wake up to in her bed.

"You don't know what I've done," he snapped.

"Oh, of course I do, Gale. Everyone in the District knows what you do up on that nasty slag heap. Even Haymitch Abernathy knows. He's convinced you have lice, the clap, and Dutch elm disease, and parvo."

Parvo? How the hell would-nevermind.

"Wait," he growled. "Why the hell were you talking about my sex life with Haymitch? You didn't tell him about all this, did you?"

Surely she wouldn't have told him.

"No I didn't tell him," she looks around a little uncomfortably. "My mother did."

"You told your mother?"

His mother knew, of course, but he hadn't told her. Why would he?

It wasn't something he could imagine Madge doing, either. Her mother was a little off. The thought of her running to her to tell her the little boy from the Seam was trying to pass her off to his brother for some kind of marriage of convenience was not easy to conjure up.

"No, she was listening in. She heard Vick and she just sort of told Mr. Abernathy when he came by."

Gale was picturing it, Madge's dainty mother, fretting over her only child, warning her against the wicked, filthy boy from the Seam wanting to steal her purity or some crap like that. Then recruiting Haymitch, the filthy louse…

"Bet she was really happy to hear it," he muttered. She smiled weakly.

"Look, let's just pretend none of this happened. Obviously, neither one of us would do that with the other."

"Because I've got lice and Dutch elm disease," Gale snorted.

"I didn't say that. That was Mr. Abernathy. Calm down. You're the one that looked so disgusted at the thought of touching me," she crossed her arms, lips puckering again.

"I didn't-I did not!" He pointed harshly at her, "You're the one who looked like you would run away if I got too close to you with my parvo covered hands."

"I don't think you have parvo and I wouldn't run away."

Her eyes widen just a fracture when she realizes what she's said.

Gale feels a little smirk crawl up his lips. "Wouldn't run away, huh?"

Her jaw clenches, "You know what I meant."

Gale knew he shouldn't pick at it. He knew perfectly well what she meant, but she so rarely let him get under her skin, always had her face set and her cards to her chest, it was a little invigorating to toy with her.

"What if I asked you to go up to the slag heap? Would you run away then?"

She gives him a withered look, "All the way to the Capitol."

#######

He laughs, his deep, booming laugh that she loves so much, as they start off toward their homes, the crushing silence vanished and replaced with a more comfortable one.

The knowledge that they both find Vick's little plan somewhat silly is pleasant.

Though not as pleasant as the fact that, if only in jest, Gale would even think of taking her to the slag heap. Not that she would go. It's filthy and degrading. But he could associate her with it, and for some twisted reason she likes that.

When they come to her porch her mother is in the swing, staring vacantly off in the distance. Madge doesn't even think she's noticed her arrival until she speaks, still not looking at her.

"Hello, love. Good day?"

She gets up and walks toward the door.

Madge gives her a tight smile, "Okay I guess."

Her mother's wide blue eyes catch Gale in the periphery and she turns to him, "Hello, dear. Did Madge change her mind?"

Oh, god, no. We just got past this.

Gale's brow furrows, "Changed her mind about what?"

"Nothi-"

"About having sex with you, dear. She said you wouldn't want to, that you didn't like her, but she's such a pretty girl I couldn't imagine it." She smiles emptily at Madge over her shoulder, "Love, he's such a big boy, you'll want to be careful your first time. And change your sheets. Mrs. Oberst won't like it if she has to do it for you."

Madge covers her head with her arms. Maybe if she hoped hard enough the ground would open up and swallow her down, save her from her mother's cheerful endorsement of physical relations with Gale Hawthorne.

Her mother looks back at Gale and pats his shoulder, "Take it slow with her, please." Then she floats back toward the door, leaning into Madge as she does and whispering loudly, "I put the latex free ones in your bedside table."

Then she disappears back into the house, leaving Madge to her humiliation.

She peeks out from between her arms and expects for Gale to be smirking at her again, to say something crude, but he's gone pale as she already was.

"Did she just-"

"She's," Madge waves her hand vaguely, "you know…a little crazy."

"What did she put in your bedside table?"

Madge gets a fit of the nervous giggles, "Oh, nothing! Nothing. She's just…crazy."

#######

The Mayor's wife, Madge's mother, being so unconcerned about his apparent intentions to take her daughter to her room and have, what she must image to be, a quick and dirty roll between her expensive sheets is a bit confusing to Gale.

He's also fairly certain she just told Madge she's stocked her up on condoms. Discussing whether or not she knew how to keep more little Hawthornes from coming into the world with her mad mother couldn't have been pleasant. It hadn't been enjoyable for Gale the first the first time and it definitely wasn't the other night, and his mother is perfectly sane.

Madge is practically radiating heat she's so completely embarrassed. He feels the need to spare her it further.

"I think I'll just go."

She nods mutely, not even able to meet his eyes.

"Gale!" Vick is at the gate, unlatching it and bounding up to them.

Because this just can't get worse.

He comes to a stop in front of the two of them, beaming. "Good, you're both here, I can do it all at once."

"Do what?" Gale's almost afraid to know.

"Apologize!"

Madge snaps up, shaking her head, "Oh, no, Vick, you really, really, don't have to."

"No, mom said I have to," he answers. His face becomes deadly serious, "Madge, I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable and prop-o-sitioned you." He rolls his eyes, "Even if I still do think those chemicals would make you happy."

He carries on, oblivious to the fact that he is, once again, making her uncomfortable.

"I guess you could accidentally get pregnant, like mom did with Gale, and then you'd have a baby, and then you'd get a weak bladder, or something, and have to pee a lot. I don't know, mom was explaining it. She told me not to tell you that part, but having to pee all the time is probably pretty annoying, so I think you should know. And, babies are pretty big and it would have to come out of your vagina, so I just think you should know. They're way bigger than a penis."

He's breathless as he nods, holding up his hands to show her just how big a baby is, as if she's unaware, compared to what he must assume is an average sized male sex organ.

Gale covers his face with his hand. He loves his siblings, he really does, but at moments like this he wonders if being an only child wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Madge is trying to force a smile, but it comes off as a grimace."Oh…thank you, Vick. That was," she searches for a work, "very…informative."

He grins then turns to Gale.

Oh hell no!

Gale tries to stop him, but he's already off.

"Gale, I'm sorry I tried to get you and Madge to get married for sex. Mom said you have to love each other, not just like, each other to get married, even if you can have sex with just liking each other. Or not, that's what Thom and Rory said. Mom told them to shut up, but I remember the girls at school you've taken to the slag heap and I don't think you like them half as much as you like Madge, so I think they're right on that." He takes another deep breath and continues to rattle, "And I'm sorry I told Madge you were hairy."

Vick turns back to Madge, standing petrified with all encompassing embarrassment, to Gale's left.

"Madge, Gale isn't hairy. Well, he is, but Rory wasn't lying, it is normal. I found another book and it called them secondary sexual characteristics. It just means he's hit puberty."

Madge coughs to cover a snort of laughter, "Oh…good to know."

"Yeah, just like you have breasts and stuff. You have really nice ones, by the way, Rory said so too. Oh, and hair. You have hair in weird places too, I guess. But yours is probably lighter, ri-" He stops himself when Gale shoots him a look telling him that was definitely on the list of things he wasn't supposed to talk about or ask about. Especially with a lady.

Vick sighs, looking up at them both, waiting for them to, hopefully, accept his apology.

Madge gives him as bright a smile as she can manage, "Thank you, Vick."

He beams and turns to Gale, who rolls his eyes. It's his fault for not telling him some of this crap before Rory got to him, after all.

"It's…fine, Vick."

Vick nods, proud of his good job.

"Madge can I use your bathroom?"

She gives him a weak wave off and he dashes toward the house.

After a few seconds she looks at Gale, a slight smile on her face.

"Congratulations on hitting puberty."

He can't help himself. He lets out a boom of laughter and her smile brightens, becomes more genuine.

"Thanks. You too."

#######

Behind them there's an outburst of laughter. They turn and find Rory. He'd been out of sight, just within earshot of the whole ordeal, behind the big tree in Madge's back yard. He's doubled over, practically purple and breathless from laughing.

Their mother had probably sent him to keep an eye on Vick making his apology to Madge. Or he was just being obnoxious and sensed a catastrophe brewing. Each was as likely as the other.

"Enjoying the show, you little asshole?"

Rory is laughing too hard to formulate an answer, just gives Gale a pair of thumbs up.

Gale makes to lunge at him, makes a swipe and just misses catching his brother's collar by a fingertip, and Rory bounds off toward the fence.

"Too slow, Jackass!" He shouts, still laughing, as he vaults the fence, "Puberty was a lot nicer to you than Gale, Madge!"

Madge bursts into laughter as Gale mutters 'I gotta go' before chasing after Rory, shouting obscenities she's never even heard before at his back.

He's going to kill that little shit, no matter how right he is about Madge's puberty.


	4. The Talk, pt 4, or People Will Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

It had been a few days. A few days blessedly free of all the unpleasantness that had plagued the house since Vick had first mentioned his wild little plan.

Gale had gotten home, cleaned up, eaten a calm, unsatisfying dinner, and planned to take his aching bones to bed.

He'd just flopped down, face in his flat pillow, when he heard his brothers' voices whispering on the other side of the room, on the floor by Rory's bed.

Try as he might, he couldn't hear what was being said, but as it was Rory doing the majority of the talking, he could guess that it was something he wasn't going to like. Hoping to avoid another embarrassing situation, Gale pushed himself up and stumbled over to them, falling across Rory's bed and landing with his face between the two conspirators.

"What're yo-"

His eyes landed on the book in Vick's lap. A biology book, apparently, opened to a page with a color diagram of a very intimate part of the female anatomy.

"We're examining a vagina," Vick tells him. Because it just isn't obvious enough.

"I, uh, see that." Gale frowns down at the picture. He's never seen one at this angle before. "Why?"

"I'm trying to figure out the baby thing still," Vick's brow creases. His finger jabs the hole labeled 'urethra'. "That's where they pee from, so no wonder it makes them hafta go all the time when they're pregnant."

Gale arches an eyebrow. He hadn't really thought about the ramifications of pregnancy on the female body all that much, only the ramification of getting a female body pregnant. This recurring information is a bit unsettling and he heartily wishes to erase it from his mind.

"I'm examining boobs," Rory grinned. "Vick's just an 'Undersee boob expert', I'd rather be a 'general boob expert'."

Gale tries not to laugh, he'spretty sure he'd rather be any kind of boob expert than a miner.

Vick's color darkens, "I'm not an 'Undersee boob expert'. I just hug her…a lot."

Gale is struck that there isn't as much conviction behind Vick's protest as there had been the year before when he'd gotten in a knock down fight with Rory over Madge's boobs and his apparent knowledge of them, it makes him a little sad to know his youngest brother is crossing that line.

Before Rory knows what's happened, Gale snatches the book from his hand, which turns out not to be a book at all.

"Where did you get this?"

Rory shrugs and makes to grab it back.

It's a girly magazine, and despite Rory's lack of response, Gale recognizes the worn out thing.

Thom, that asshole.

"Give it back, Gale! I'm studying!"

Gale considers not giving it back, rolling it up and shoving it in the orifice of the man who'd thought it was a good idea to give it to a kid that hasn't even hit thirteen yet, but he'd rather Rory have pictures than try and get a look at the real things, so he reluctantly hands it back.

The boy grins as he flops back down and flips the magazine back open to a page with a very busty, very naked blonde on it.

Vick has looked over and is focused intensely on Rory's magazine for several seconds before he says anything. "I think Madge's are nicer."

No. No more of that.

"Yeah," Rory agrees, "but hers are under a bra, under a shirt, these aren't."

Gale covers his face and tries hard not to think about what is under Madge's shirt, and tries even harder to not think about what's under her bra.

Vick turns his look to Gale. "Why are breasts so nice?"

For several seconds Gale doesn't say anything, because, honestly, he isn't sure what is so appealing about them, they just are. He certainly isn't a fan of his mother's, he'd watched her feed three siblings with them, like most of the women in the Seam did, and that was their actual function, but on any girl other than the mothers…Gale was quite the fan of the fleshy mounds.

Vick flips back to a dog eared page showing a side cut view of a breast, "See? They're full of milk ducts and fat. That's it pretty much. Why are they so nice?"

"'Cause they're like pillows. Fluffy pillows on their chests. And if they've got bigger ones…" Rory gets a fond look on his face.

Gale rolls his eyes. As if Rory has any idea what a breast feels like…or at least Gale hopes he has no real knowledge of what a breast feels like.

"Hmm," Vick's eyebrows knit together in thought. "I bet Madge's would be real nice to sleep on." Gale furiously tries to block that idea from his mind. Vick looks back at the diagram, "I bet she makes a bunch of milk when she has a baby."

Gale's isn't certain there's a correlation between breast size and milk production. He's never really thought about it before. That's probably a question for his mother, since she had actual knowledge of that sort of thing, or so he hoped.

"Let's keep that thought to ourselves, alright?"

Vick nods absently as he turns back to the vagina diagram.

"Hey, Gale? What do you know about the," he squints at a word arising from the top of the diagram, "clit-or-is?"

Since he'd never even heard of the thing the answer was nothing. "The what?"

Vick climbed up on the bed beside him and pokes his finger to a nub on the diagram. "The clit-or-is."

Rory jumps up and reads off, "Highly sensitized and engorged after orgasm." He shoots Gale a sardonic look, "Well that would be why Gale looks so clueless."

Gale catches Rory behind the knee with his foot and sends him toppling over. "Ouch!"

"It does say that most men reach orgasm before women," Vick points to a paragraph in another book.

Gale shoots him a look. He would argue, but he really doesn't feel like having this conversation with his little brothers.

"Most of the vaginal nerve endings are toward the opening," Vick tells him as he flips the page. "Supposedly that's what makes childbirth a little less horrible, cause the inside part isn't as sensitive. I dunno though, having your body stretch like that seems really, really painful, even if there aren't that many nerves up there."

Rory gets back up giggling holding another book out to his brothers, "It says here 'vagina' is Latin for 'Scabbard'. Get it?"

The look of confusion on Vick's face says he doesn't, Gale does though, so he trips Rory again.

"Stop that!"

"Stop being a little asshole then!"

Gale looks at the clock and sighs, "Put these away, and don't let mom catch you with them."

God that's the last thing he needs, to explain to his mother why he and his little brothers are investigating mysterious parts of the female anatomy.

Vick trots off to put on his pajamas and Rory searches for a hiding place for his dirty magazine.

He finally settles on the loose board by his bed. He gives it one last fond look.

"You know, Gale," he looks over his shoulder at his brother, "Undersee actually likes you. I have no ideawhy, but she does." Rory shakes the magazine, "You could get to see a real live girl, like one of these, and you're not even going to try? I mean, I know you've seen some before, but let's face, she's a hell of a lot better looking."

He shoves the magazine under the board and gathers his sleeping clothes.

"Just so you know, if you aren't interested in her, I might just have to turn up the charm. There's only a few years between us, I think I can swing it."

Gale snorts. "Not a chance."

#######

When he gets to the mines the next day, the sun just barely peaking over the horizon, he spots Thom, slinking in and avoiding him.

"You dick! Why are you giving my brothers dirty magazines?"

Thom shrugs before darting to the elevators that take them down, he knows Gale can't kick his ass in there or in the mines themselves, he's safe until the end of the day, and by that time Gale will be too worn out to do anything more than shout.

He gives his supposed 'best friend' a filthy look as he gets on the elevator. Come Sunday he's going to kick his ass.

Thom leans back, smirking as the other men filter on with dead feet.

As the doors close and the gears groan to life, Thom leans up to Gale and whispers loudly, "So," he waits until everyone is listening, "heard you were boning Undersee."

Gale pulls his helmet down over his eyes, groaning as the men begin whooping and whistling, applauding his supposed success.

"The Mayor's girl, huh?"

"Aiming high, aren't we, Hawthorne?"

Gale ignores the constant barrage of congratulations on such a 'tight little number'.

"Town girls," Sanderson, a huge beast of a man who has spent more of his life underground than above grins, "got a little more meat on them. Give you something to hold onto."

He makes a few crude gestures before violently humping the air, complete with lewd noises, earning a round of cheers from the other men. Gale wonders how much he'll have to drink to erase the memory from his mind.

"Always knew if any guy was gonna bed one, it'd be you," another man nodded.

Gale swung his ax harder, maybe he could dig himself a way out of this increasingly hellish hole. He didn't know how much longer he could handle being in such close quarters with his perverted coworkers.

Thom makes his way over, actual tears in his eyes.

"Are you crying?" Gale is incredulous. He's the one being humiliated.

Thom rubs his glove over his face, smearing coal and sweat across his cheek before he wheezes, "I'm just so happy for you."

Gale makes a threatening gesture with his ax.

"You're lucky to have found a girl to take you," one of the old men eyes him. "'Specially with all them venereal diseases you got."

Damn it, Haymitch!

"I don't have any venereal diseases!"

The old man squints at him, "Not what I heard. Heard you got the 'Dutch elder's disease'."

Gale rolls his eyes, "It's 'Dutch elm disease' and that's a tree fungus."

He's never heard the mines go so quiet. He can feel everyone's eyes on him.

"Uh, not that it's any of my business, but, uh, how'd you get a tree fungus?" Sanderson looks a little worried as he glances down at Gale's crotch. "A lot of hard liquor?"

"You'd have to be pretty drunk to do that with a tree!" Another man shouts and laughter erupts from behind Gale.

"Desperate times?" Thom offers a little less than helpfully.

Gale runs his hand over his face and groans. He's surrounded by morons.

"I don't have a tree disease, or any other kind of disease." Not that he's aware of anyways.

The noise restarts and Sanderson's face relaxes, apparently relieved Gale's manly parts aren't being currently eaten away.

He can only pray Madge isn't suffering the same fate at school. That place was worse than the mines for gossip.

#######

Madge was quietly eating her dry crackers when a shadow crossed over her. Standing, tall and thin and with a wicked grin on her face, was the schools most notorious gossip and just an all around unpleasant girl, Chesney Shumard.

She plops down in front of Madge, grin still in place, and tosses her dry looking dark hair over her shoulder. It isn't a promising sign, she never has anything good to say to, or about, anyone. The last time she'd spoken to Madge had been to tell her should wear makeup because her complexion was 'pasty'.

"My mother's cousin's best friend's little girl heard that you and Gale Hawthorne were getting married because you've had sex." She narrows her eyes, "Are you pregnant with his love child?"

Madge is so dumbfounded she can only gape at her. It isn't until Chesney turns to her group of friends and grins, apparently taking stunned silence as an admission, that Madge finds her voice.

"I'm not pregnant, with Gale or any other guy's 'love child'."

Chesney's smile droops with disappointment, "Oh."

Several of her vile friends slither over. "What's it like?"

"Have you done the mouth thing?"

"How bi-"

Madge throws he hands up. This conversation is over. "I have not, nor am I planning to do anything, with any part of my body with Gale Hawthorne's body."

How do these things get started?

She suspects Rory was blabbing about the whole messy situation to his friends, he has a loud mouth, and someone overheard and passed it along, distorting it into a more sordid story than it had been originally.

Granted, the fact that anyone would think she even had a chance with Gale is a little satisfying to Madge. Then again, he has a reputation of not being too picky…maybe it's not as big a compliment as she thought.

Chesney purses her lips, "It's just as well."

"Yeah," her friend piped in. "I heard he has parvo."

"That's a dog disease," Madge points out.

"Exactly," another friend nods. "You don't want to get with a guy that's into bestiality."

"I'll keep that in mind," Madge rolls her eyes. "But I'm pretty sure Gale doesn't have parvo."

"How would you know if you hadn't seen anything?" Chesney grins, thinking she's caught Madge in a lie.

"He's got half the girls at the school lined up to do all kinds of nasty things with him up at the slag heap." Which she's certain isn't entirelytrue. "Why would he start with animals?"

"Well, I wouldn't take the chance," one of her snotty friends tells her. The others nod their enthusiastic agreement.

My how their tunes have changed. Only minutes before they'd been chomping at the bit for all the disgusting and intimate details, now they're playing like they wouldn't touch Gale with a ten foot pole. Which is so far from the truth it's laughable. They'd jump him without a second thought, parvo or not.

Hopefully, she thinks, someone will get caught actually doing something, perhaps under the bleachers. The gossip ring at the school has a notoriously short attention span, for which she's grateful. A few days and this will all blow past.. Just a few blessed days


	5. The Talk, pt 5, or Stocking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Taking his brothers to the store was not Gale's idea of the perfect end to his work day.

With the Hob gone, though, his mother needing thread, and the little monsters bouncing off the walls of the house and driving her crazy, he really felt he had no choice. At least he didn't have to drag Posy along. Her eyes were far bigger than his paycheck.

It wasn't large, just a general store with a small selection of crappy Capitol processed goods. Gale felt himself missing the old trading post more than ever on the days he had to visit the shithole.

Both boys disappeared the moment their feet touched down on the grimy tile, a bad sign. Gale practically ran through to the sewing section to find the thread. The quicker they left the happier he'd be.

As soon as his one and only need was firmly in his hand, he started searching out his siblings.

It shouldn't be hard, he thought, they were all fairly tall and none of the shelving was very high.

After several minutes he spotted them, standing like a pair of conspirators in the farthest corner of the building. Gale didn't know the layout of the store very well, so he had no idea what they were examining so intently, it couldn't be good though. Not with his luck.

Snaking his way through the low shelving, he finally made his way to them, peaking over their shoulders to see what had so grabbed their attention.

For the love of…

"Put those down!" He hissed, snatching the box from them and tossing it forcefully back with the others.

"Gale! I was reading that," Vick tells him, reaching for it again. "How are you supposed to find what size you are?"

"You don't," Gale tells him. He's ten.

"Ribbed for her pleasure," Rory wags his eyebrows as he picks up a dark colored box with neon writing on it. He tosses it to Gale. "Probably wanna hold onto that. Might help you find that clitoris."

Gale considers smacking him with box, but he doesn't want to the elderly shop owner to come over and investigate the three boys digging through his small selection of condoms.

Vick takes the box from Gale and squints at it, "I dunno. That seems like it might make it kinda uncomfortable." He looks up, full of utmost seriousness, "Couldn't it get caught on something?"

Having never even seen something even remotely close to a 'ribbed' condom, Gale just pressed his hands to his face. "I don't know, Vick."

He just didn't know.

Rory snorts. "You know, for someone with your reputation at the slag heap, you really are clueless."

Gale narrows his eyes at him. He's half tempted to tell the little shit that most of those rumors were crap, lies perpetuated by Thom. He doesn't though. Those rumors are a pretty good ego boosts for him, something he finds he needs more and more as his time in the mines increases.

He grabs the box from Vick again and hurls it at Rory's head. All thoughts of being investigated by the store owner gone from his mind.

"They didn't sell this crap at the Hob." Not that he would have wasted money on them anyway. He'd had some older boys show him how to make one out of animal intestines early on, just after his dad died. They worked perfectly fine.

"Besides," Gale shot the box a little smirk, "If you're doing it right you don't need it, so I definitely don't need 'ribbing'."

His smirk slipped off at the looks on each of his brothers' faces: Rory's triumphant and Vick's a little frightened. Why was he bragging about his sexual prowess to a boy whose voice was just starting to crack and another that was just now realizing he liked breasts?

He groaned internally and grabbed the box from Rory, tossing it back to the shelf again. He needs to get out of the store.

"Gale?"

As tempted as he was to ignore Vick's tiny voice, he couldn't. When he turns he finds the boy has stopped and is picking up yet another box of condoms.

"Why do they need to be flavored?" His nose wrinkles. "I didn't read anything about them being able to taste down there…"

Rory bursts into laughter. "They can't, stupid. It's for the mouth thing."

Vick's brow knits and he looks back down at the box, miming the words 'mouth thing'.

"It's when they get down on their knees and-"

Gale clamps his hand over Rory's mouth. They aren't talking about that in the middle of the store.

A look of dawning comprehension falls over Vick. His eyes widen and his mouth gapes just a little. His nose wrinkles, "Ew!"

He's so disgusted that he tosses the 'fruit flavored' condoms away with more force than he probably intended.

"Why?" He shudders, looking at Gale, "Why would anyone do that?"

"It must be fun," Rory snickers as he pulls Gale's hand from his mouth. Gale puts his other hand over, holding a little tighter this time.

"They-it-uh…" Gale has no explanation. Personally, he wouldn't, but as he'd only ever been on the receiving end…

"But you pee outta there!" Vick gags. "Then they do that, then you kiss them, and-urgh!"

Rory wiggles free and dives for the box, rolling out into the main aisle. "Look Gale! It has assorted berry flavors! Undersee likes berries, doesn't she?"

Vick shoots him a look, "Madge wouldn't do that. Not unless someone made her."

Gale groans, stomps over and yanks the box from Rory, then hears a gasp from a few feet away. He looks up and sees the Undersees' irritable old housekeeper, Opine or Overt or something like that. She's with her granddaughter, a tall, freckle-faced girl with wide eyes fixed on the box now crushed in Gale's hand.

If she didn't have a bad opinion of him already, which he's sure she did, she didn't seem to hold anyone in good graces, she certainly would think the worst of him now.

Her ancient eyes narrow on the box, then flicker up to Gale before she clamps her hands over her granddaughter's ears, "Those won't keep the crabs at bay, young man." She tells the girl to go wait by the counter then stomps over to Gale, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him down to her level. "If I see so much as one stain, one creepy crawly, find any little trace of you or your littlefriend in any wastebasket, I will castrate you."

"I won't be cleaning up after you and that girl's little romps, and woe betide either one of you if I hear one grunt or moan." Her mouth forms a cool smile as she gives him a little shove before heading to her granddaughter, waiting at the counter.

He doesn't even feel Rory stand up, face contorted in disgust. "Ew, you just got sex talked by an old lady. Sick."

Gale does, in fact, feel a little queasy. That Madge's housekeeper would think that about her, would think so little of her, is a little irritating. She's a good girl, annoyingly good, in fact. He doesn't really understand the animosity the old lady has for her.

He puts the box back, tells Vick and Rory to wait outside, and heads to the counter.

The cashier boy rings him up, tosses the spool of thread in, then, to Gale's horror, throws in one of the boxes of condoms.

"What are you doing?" He tries frantically to push the box out.

"Mrs. Oberst paid for it. Said she didn't want to be, uh, cleaning up any 'leftover Seam lotion'," the boy's ears turn bright red.

Before Gale knows what's happening the boy throws in another box, this time one of the 'berry flavored and ribbed' variety, eyes flickering warily to Gale before mumbling, "I've heard things."

I just quit.

Irritated, Gale grabs the bag, muttering to himself about everyone losing their minds, and rushes out the door.

He turns on the spot, searching out the sources of his misery, only to find them chatting amicably with, of all people, Peeta Mellark.

There is a god and he hates me. It was the only explanation.

Mellark is standing, arms crossed, and a very intent look on his face as Vick animatedly tells him what Gale can only assume is something of monumental embarrassment. Mostly because Rory is doubled over in laughter behind him.

Gale jogs over, he needs to put a stop to this as soon as possible.

"What-"

Mellark holds his hand up. Up close, Gale can see he's fighting a smile.

"Gale, please, I really need to hear the rest of this."

No. You really don't.

Vick takes a breath. "-but that's just a secondary sex characteristic, so he's really not that hairy."

Gale feels his face burn.

"Oh? Did Gale teach you all that?"

Mellark is smiling calmly awaiting his answer, which, of course, a beaming Vick is all too happy to give.

"He taught me some, but I read about most of it. I know a lot about breasts and vaginas now." Vick's face lights up, "Hey, Peeta, do you know what the cli-"

Gale lunges and covers his brother's mouth.

Mellark's eyebrow arch skyward, an amused sort of grin forms on his lips. "What was that, Vick?"

"Piss off, Mellark," Gale growls as he flips Vick over his shoulder. He wants to get as far away from the gingerbread boy as he can.

Unfortunately Vick's foot catches the bag, spilling the contents onto the ground at their feet, flavored and ribbed condoms all.

Rory looks like he'd just been told school was cancelled. His eyes widen and he lunges for the boxes, laughing gleefully. Vick stills and looks appropriately shocked as he eyes the mess.

Mellark's expression mutes, his mouth flattens into a thin line. For what is probably the first time in his life he doesn't have the words for the situation.

"So…uh, having a party or something, Gale?"

Gale glares at him, "No. That stupid houseke-"

"Look, strawberry flavored!" Rory has ripped open the lurid box and pulled several packages from it, waving them triumphantly in the air. He tosses a handful at Mellark who catches them before they hit him square in the face. "Practice safe sex!"

Gale has the sudden urge to knock into Mellark and make him drop all the condoms.

Mellark's cheeks turn pink slightly, but he nods, turning one of the black wrappers over in his hand. "Hmm. 'Berry blast'. Surprisingly accurate and yet still a little disturbing."

He looks down at the pile on the sidewalk then up to Gale with a small smirk, "Uh, just so you know, I don't think these protect against tree fungus, though they might help keep you from spreading any zoogenic illnesses you may have acquired."

Gale narrows his eyes.

I'm going to kill him and his asshole brothers.

Mellark tries to reign in his smirk a little as Vick twists on Gale's shoulder, he's getting too big to be carried, even this way.

"What's a 'zoogenic illness'? And how would Gale get one?"

Giving Mellark a warning glare, he isn't sure what a 'zoogenic illness' is, but he can guess, Gale quickly grumbles, "Nothing. Just one of Haymitch's drunken…things."

And that particular bit of nonsense had spread faster than any real disease could ever hope.

"Is that where it started?" Mellark grins, "My brothers heard it from Delly Cartwright."

Haymitch Abernathy is a dead man. As soon as the electricity to the fence is back off, he's dragging that worthless drunk out and chocking him with a handful of 'Razzle Dazzle Raspberry' condoms. Thanks to the Undersees' insane housekeeper he now has plenty.

"Okay, so, do I even actually want to know why you have two boxes of condoms?"

Gale runs his free hand over his face.

"Look, Mellark," he doesn't even know where to start, "that stupid housekeeper bought them. I don't, I mean, I do, I would need them. I don't 'cause I'm busy…working."

He needs to stop talking. He's just making it worse.

"What housekeeper?"

Gale blanks. Hadn't Vick just given him the run down of the whole embarrassing tale? Judging by his blank expression, the answer was no.

"Madge Undersee's," Rory tells him as he gathers the condoms back into their box. Seeing Mellark's still baffled expression Rory further elaborates. "That's why Vick's been looking up all this stuff. 'Cause he was trying to get Gale and her to get married so they could have sex, so they could release endorphins or something, right Vick?"

Gale can feel Vick nodding against his back.

Mellark grimaces, gives Gale a sympathetic look.

"Wow. I'm suddenly very glad I'm the youngest." He leans around Gale, down to where Vick's head is on Gale's back. "Well, Vick, that was a very…thoughtful of you…I think."

"I thought so."

Mellark chuckles, "Yeah, but it's probably not the best idea to ask a girl that sort of thing."

Vick sighs, "I know. I apologized."

Mellark pales, apparently not having thought Vick would have asked Madge something like that already. How wrong he was.

Rory snickers, "I think Vick aimed too high. She's outta Gale's league. He's crabby and dirty and kind of a jerk, and she's all sweet and soft." His eyes light up, "You know what? You should've gone for Madge. You'll be lucky if you ever get to even touch Katniss. But someone with a body like Madge's is bound to like getting nak-"

Gale thwaps him on the back of the head before he can finish. He's a little satisfied to see the soured look Rory's words have pushed on Mellark's face.

"What? She looks like one of the girls in the magazine," Rory grumbles as he rubs his head.

Mellark's eyebrows arch up. "Magazines?" He shoots Gale a puzzled look. "You're a lot nicer than my big brothers. They just told me to watch the Capitol programs with my mother."

"I didn't give them any magazines. My asshole friend did."

Thom was also going to be taken out by a wad of condoms in the woods, when the electricity went out again .

Gale wonders if he really looks like the kind of guy that would give his little brothers dirty magazines. Judging by the unconvinced look on Mellark's face, apparently so.

"Uh-huh." Mellark takes a long breath. "I think I'll just go now. I told Mrs. Everdeen and Prim I'd bring them some flour."

He quickly, and a little uncomfortably, waves goodbye as he takes off in the direction of his family's bakery.

Gale groans. Now Mellark was going to tell Katniss and she was going to think he was some kind of pervert. Which he more frequently felt he was.

His only hope was that Mellark would be too uncomfortable, and too busy, to bring any of this up to her.

#######

Madge had just finished folding the last of her laundry when Mrs. Oberst came stomping in, plastic bag from the general store in her hand.

"I thought you were off for the day?"

Why would she come back? She practically danced out every evening.

She shoves the bag at Madge. "Take it."

With more than a little trepidation, Madge took the plastic bag, pulled it open, peeked inside.

It took less than half a second for her to drop it to the floor.

"Oh my god."

"Go put it in your room," the old woman commands her as she reaches down and scoops it up, pushing it back into Madge's arms.

Madge quickly pushes the bag and its contents onto the counter, eyeing it fearfully.

"Why?"

Why, oh, why would that horrible old lady think Madge would have any need for flavored condoms? What was she even-

"Oh, ew!" The mouth thing? Again? Was Mr. Abernathy telling anyone who would listen his wild stories from the Capitol?

"Better use for your mouth than me having to listen to you yammer." She narrows her eyes, "And at least if you're occupied with that there's less of a chance of you getting yourself knocked up."

Madge could pull her hair out. "I'm not-"

"But remember, penicillin will only help with so much. Crabs are itchy and a real pain to get rid of."

How the old woman came by this nugget of knowledge, Madge neither knows nor wants to know.

She pulls some bananas out of her bag and sets them on the counter, giving Madge a small look.

"You'll thank me later," she grunts as she backs towards the door, leaving Madge with an entire box of fruit and berry flavored condoms and batch of bananas to contemplate over. She pokes the box, sees the words 'ribbed for her pleasure' in neon green, and cringes.

She isn't alone long though, before Mr. Abernathy comes stumbling in. She knocks the box off the counter and pushes it as far under it as she can, praying he heads straight for her father's liquor cabinet.

The odds, however, aren't in her favor.

He narrows his eyes at her, "What's wrong, sweeheart?"

Madge arches her eyebrows and tilts her head, "What do you mean?"

He waves his hand in her direction, "You have that 'look'."

She frowns, unaware of having a telling look.

"You're mother use to get the same look." He narrows his eyes.

Her foot kicks the box softly and quietly across the floor and into the pantry.

"You've pickled your brain, Mr. Abernathy."

He grunts.

"Haymitch, you bastard! Get out here so I can kick your ass!"

Gale is at the back door, Rory grinning behind him, and Vick waving brightly in at her.

Mr. Abernathy doesn't even turn to look at him, "Is that the sweet cousin I hear?" He smirks, "What's he on about?"

Madge groans, remembering the girls from school.

"You've made it your life's mission to tell half the District he's carrying at least ten different diseases, some of which aren't even real." That's what he's on about.

She marches around Mr. Abernathy, over to the door, letting Gale and his brothers in.

"I am so sick of you," Gale jabs his finger at the man. "You have everyone thinking I do unnatural things with animals and trees and, and-"

He's rendered incoherent with annoyance and just glares.

Mr. Abernathy starts laughing, snorting and chortling, wheezing.

Rory slips past them, leans against the counter, "Hey, Madge."

Vick bounces up behind him, "Can I use the bathroom?"

Rubbing her temples, Madge nods. One source of potential trouble out of the way.

He rushes off while Rory leans a little further in, "So you still like berries, right?"

Her mouth turns down in confusion.

"Rory!"

Gale grabs him by the back of his shirt and starts to haul him from the counter, but Rory twists, knocking his brother in the stomach and making him drop something. Something embarrassingly familiar to Madge…

Try as he might, Gale just isn't fast enough to grab the box before Mr. Abernathy catches it on the toe of his shoe, balancing it, then popping it up to his hand.

His eyes widen then narrow, swiftly shifting to Gale. He waves the box at him. "What exactly are you doing, bringing these in here?"

Gale darkens, "That stupid housekeeper bought them and made them give them to me!"

Mr. Abernathy rounds on Madge, "What did I tell you about the mouth thing, Pearl?"

Too much.

Madge buries her face in her hands, "We aren't doing anything! Nothing! I swear!"

"You keep your disease riddled phallus away from her, you hear?"

Gale snaps, "You made all that up!"

They continue to snipe at one another, insulting everything about the other from top to bottom.

"You're nothing but a dirty old drunk!"

"At least I haven't got syphilis!"

"I haven't got syphilis! Or anything else! You probably do though," Gale growls. "Would explain how messed up in the head you are!"

Madge flops over on the counter.

"They really don't get along do they, love?"

"No," Madge sighs. "They really don't."

Her mother, pale hair floating around her head, watches the scene in her kitchen with dull concern. She'd drifted down the stairs unnoticed, when Madge doesn't know. She glides around the counter and gently takes the box from Mr. Abernathy as he continues his argument with Gale.

Her brow wrinkles, "Oh, Haymitch…"

"They aren't mine!" He darkens, his cheeks brighten, then he grabs the box back from her and throws it at Gale. A grinning Rory catches them instead.

"Did you bring them for Madge?" She asks brightly, eyes fixed on a visibly flustered Gale. The grin slips fully off Rory's face, replaced by a confused frown.

Mr. Abernathy makes a strangled noise before taking her by the shoulders, guiding her out the room. "Don't encourage that, 'Tilda."

"If it makes Madge happy," she smiles airily. "He's a very handsome boy. Reminds me of you when you were younger."

Madge doesn't hear his response to that thought, just a rough noise as he kicks the door to the front room shut.

Turning back to them, Madge catches Gale stuffing the boxes back in his bag. He looks up and glares in the direction Mr. Abernathy and Madge's mother had disappeared to.

"If he thinks he's getting off that easy…" He grips the bag a little too tightly and one of the boxes inside breaks, sending condoms flying everywhere. "Crap."

Madge drops down and begins helping he and Rory gather the little packages up and stuff them in the crumpled box. She knows her face is probably flaming, she can feel it radiating off her.

Rory must notice, gets a little smirk on his lips. "Do you go red everywhere, Madge?"

Before she can respond that it's none of his business, Gale shoves him, sending him sprawling across the slick floor to the other side of the kitchen island.

"What have I said about you being an asshole?"

"I just asked what you were thinking," he shoots his brother a snotty look. "I saw you look down her dress."

Instinctively, Madge sits back and yanks the neckline of her dress up. It isn't that low, but down on her hands and knees, at that angle…

"I was not looking down her dress!" He barks at Rory before turning back to Madge, "I wasn't."

The color is deepening on his face and he's trying desperately to keep his eyes on hers now, which she isn't sure if she should take as an admittance of a guilty conscience or overcompensation for something he wasn't even doing. She just nods, no reason to dwell on it.

Gale gets up, ready to go grab his brother and throw him from the house, when a little voice pipes up behind them.

"Uh, what are you guys doing?"

Vick's eyebrows are high as he surveys the situation. His nose wrinkles, "Madge! That's gross. You don't have to do that."

She's certain she's about ready to burst into flames she's so mortified when Mr. Abernathy rushed back in, followed lightly by her mother.

"Oh, love, not in the kitchen."

Mr. Abernathy looks apoplectic, "Not anywhere!"

He starts searching his pockets for the knife he keeps on him, becoming frustrated when he can't seem to find it. He shoots Gale a dark look, "When I get a hold of something rusty, I'm cutting the 'littlest cousin' off."

Stomping over he pulls Madge to her feet and shoves her behind him.

"Mr. Abernathy, the box broke. I was just helping him pick them up."

"Alone? With just you on your knees? I told you-I warnedyou that little bastards like him'll say anything to get you dow-"

She sighs. "He just now stood up and we aren't alone."

Her finger shoots out and points to Rory, fist stuffed in his mouth to muffle his laughter, hiding behind the little island still.

Mr. Abernathy doesn't seem to take his presence as a sign of innocence.

"Probably likes an audience, an exhibitionist." He narrows his glare again, "Or he's trying to give the kid pointers."

Rory rolls his eyes and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'I wish'.

Vick comes from behind her, gets between she and Gale, giving his brothers an annoyed look before turning back to Madge. "I know you wouldn't do that."

Grateful as she is that at least one person doesn't think she's ready to go down on Gale, she forces a smile, "Thanks."

His eyes shift and he leans in, whispers, "You, uh, you wouldn't would you? I mean, it seems kinda nasty, but…if you do you should probably brush your teeth reallywell after." He nods sagely.

She grimaces. So much for his faith in her.

Her mother snatches up one of the wrappers, examines it for a second with a small smile. "Oh, 'Strawberry 'Sin'Sation'," She takes Gale's hand and places it in his palm, "She loves strawberries the best."

Gale pales a little as he watches her float over to Madge, leaning in and whisper loudly, "You need to think about what you'll do when you finish, love. If any gets in your mo-"

Mr. Abernathy grabs her and begins ushering her out of the room. "Nothing is getting in any of her orifices."

"But Haymitch, they're young. You know how excitable young men can be. Go off before they even know it. I just want her to be prepared. I don't want her to end up down there with cheeks full of-"

He lets off a string of nonsense as he covers her mouth. Madge is grateful, she has a pretty good idea where that sentence ended and she really didn't need the mental picture. Mercifully, he drags her out of the room.

Why couldn't Gale's family be as embarrassing as hers? His mother wasn't encouraging him to have Madge perform fellatio, and she can't really imagine she would. While she thinks her own mother's heart is in the right place, she's just wanting her to be safe even during that, it's absolutely mortifying. Madge doesn't even want to know how she comes up with some of the things that form in her mind. She can only pray it's from Capitol programs.

Madge covers her face with her hands, mumbling, "You guys should go. You can kill Mr. Abernathy later, Gale."

They're silent so she fans her finger out and peaks through them, horrified to find Rory has rolled into the pantry and found the box Mrs. Oberst had brought to her. He wags his eyebrows at her.

Her hands drop to her sides, fists balling up, "Mrs. Oberst brought them." She sighs, hands relaxing, "Same as Gale."

Rory smirks, setting the box on the counter, patting it fondly, before heading to the door. "See you later, Madge."

Vick throws his arms around her. She's going to have to switch him to side hugs, he's just getting tall enough his face is in a very unfortunate place, "I hope the day gets better."

She nods.

He cranes his neck a little and whispers, "I'd get rid of those. That really does sound gross and I know you wouldn't like it. It might make you sick. Plus those say something about 'ribbing' and that doesn't sound nice." His eyes shift, making sure Gale is still far enough away to not hear him, "And Gale said if you do it right you don't need it. He said hedidn't need it."

Her stomach lurches.

He looks so serious, as though he's given her a very important piece of information, that all she can do is nod and thank him.

A little smile forms on his face, his dimples just creasing, "I just want you to be safe."

She knows he does.

He gives her another little hug then bolts out the door.

Gale rubs his neck, awkwardly eyeing the box on the counter.

"Everyone in this District is nuts."

Madge snorts, "Don't I know it." Her mouth turns up slightly, "I'll tell Mr. Abernathy to tell everyone you don't have a 'disease riddled phallus'."

Though she's certain it hasn't hurt his sex life, she thinks it may be a blow to his ego.

"Whatever," he shakes his head. "Disease riddled or not, it's not seeing any action."

She didn't need to know that.

"I'm sorry this has gotten so out of hand," he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm use to this crap, but you just kind of got drug into it."

Her shoulders jerk up, "I'm use to people talking about me. I've just gone from a frigid prude to a skank that needs a shotgun wedding."

His eyebrows shoot up, "Oh?"

She shrugs, "Yeah, sorry, forgot to tell you, I'm apparently pregnant with your love child. It's all over the school."

A slow grin forms on his face, a little mischief glimmers in his eyes, "I'm so fertile I didn't even have to touch you."

She fights the smile battling onto her own lips, chuckling, "Those condoms would've never had a chance."

He laughs, his deep booming laugh. She's glad to hear it after all the tension and yelling. Her insides flip flop as she watches him.

"Well," he turns to make sure his brothers are still on the porch, "I guess I'll get these pains in the ass home. I wouldn't want to hang out here too close to you, might end up with twins, right?"

Madge nods, "They do run on my mother's side."

He walks to the door, hiding the boxes in the bag under his arm. His hand is on the handle when he turns back to her.

"Still, if you decide you want to test out any of these," he pats the box, "you let me know."

Madge's eyebrows rise, "Do I need to ask your mother to have a talk with you about propositioning girls too?"

"It's not a 'proposition'. It's an offer. Vick isn't the only one that likes to do 'research'."

She rolls her eyes, "Get out of here before I give Mr. Abernathy a steak knife."

He grins as he lets the door click behind him


	6. The Talk, pt 6, or Wishful Reading

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"Is it supposed to be this thin?" Rory opened one of the condoms, was waving it around his head like a flag.

"Put that down!" Gale growled. What if Posy or his mother came in? He'd already had to lie to his sister when she found a wayward package one of them had left out. She'd started crying, thought it was candy and her brothers were holding out on her.

"Why aren't you sharing?" Her little voice had quivered.

Gale ended up promising her a treat from the sweet shop for her silence about the 'boy candy', though when he'd have any extra money for it he didn't know.

"Posy's asleep already and mom's conked out too," Rory assured him. He stretched the condom out. He has a pile of the retched things at the foot of his bed.

Vick was immersed in one of his books. Gale was fairly certain the boy had seen more vaginas and breasts than some doctors, definitely more than the doctors in District Twelve.

"Gale, what's foreplay?"

To Gale's great annoyance, Rory starts snickering. "Haven't you figured out Gale's not very suave with women, Vick?"

Gale hurled his pillow at him.

Why does he have to such a pain in the ass?

"Touchy." Rory smirked, dodging the pillow. "Or maybe not. Might be the problem."

Gale sits up, ready to tackle his brother, go dunk him in the water barrel out back, when Vick pipes up again.

"It says that foreplay can help prepare the sexual organs for intercourse and in some increase arousal and enjoyment." He nods, "It can include the digital or oral stimulation of er-og-en-ous zones."

He looks to Gale, gagging, "Oral I know, but what's it mean 'digital'?"

For a minute Gale just stares, why does he need to explain this?

"Digit," Rory wiggles his fingers for emphasis.

Vick looks down at his hands, then to his book, then to Gale, his expression one of a boy who has just given up trying to understand why people do any of the things they do.

"You put your fingers…"

Gale quickly nods, glad he hadn't had to elaborate.

Vick groans, "Okay, a penis I understand, there's a reason. And it's not really that hard…I don't think." He sighs, "The mouth thing is disgusting, I don't understand it, but okay, whatever, I guess it wouldn't hurt anyone." He wrinkles his nose, "But fingers. Those are hard, and you have nails on them, stuff can get under them and you-ugh!"

Gale just grunts.

"They can do things with their hands too, can't they Gale?" Rory wags his eyebrows as he makes a lewd gesture. If Gale had another pillow he'd smother him with it.

Vick eyes Gale warily, glances down to his hands, then back up, "You wash your hands real good after don't you?"

Flopping back down, Gale doesn't even answer. He really doesn't want his brother thinking about where his hands may have been.

It's quiet for a few minutes, Gale hopes maybe they've moved on then he hears Vick drop his book to his lap, "Gale, when you put your fingers in, can you feel the cervix?"

He doesn't know what a cervix even is. He doesn't even lift his face from the bed.

"No Vick."

"Are you sure? It says depending on the point in the cycle it might feel like the 'tip of a nose' or lips." He squints at the book, Gale doesn't even want to know what at, then whispers, "They're like the Kraken in there."

He's silent, then, "Huh, if you insert two fingers you can, uh, palp-it-ate, palipate, palpate the ovaries…ow."

Rory frowns, "Why would you want to."

"It's a wellness check. It says they take swabs too." Vick's nose wrinkles. "Being a girl is rough."

Being your brother is rough.

"Hey Gale, do you use lub-ric-a-tion?"

"N-What?"

Vick jabs the book, "It says before intercourse you should make sure to either use lub-ric-a-tion or that your partner is suff-sufficiently aroused and has produced vaginal secretions or intercourse could be painful." He gives Gale a hard look, "You said it didn't hurt them."

"God, Gale, what kind of asshole are you?" Rory shakes his head in mock indignation, "Going in dry."

Gale sits up, "Where the hell did you learn that?"

Not from him, that's for sure.

Rory shrugs, "Bristol and Thom."

I need new friends.

"Vick, they-they're-it's-urg!" He crushes his face back into the mattress. Maybe he'll suffocate during the night.

"Maybe if you were better at foreplay…" Rory whispers, just barely keeping from laughing.

Gale rolled his head a little, glared at his brother. He was excellent at foreplay. He was a foreplay expert. He hadn't had one complaint, thank you very much.

Rory bounces over and skims over Vick's book. "Flirtatious talk and provocative clothing can be used during precoital activities." He grins, "Well, I'm in with Undersee then."

Not even in your dreams.

"What makes you say that?" Gale needs a good laugh.

Rory's mouth evens out into a cocky smirk. "She says hi to me at school and she's nicer to me than she is to you." He raises his eyebrows, "And she wears that pretty purple bra, always lets the shoulder fall just below her sleeve."

Gale snorts, "The straps fall down you idiot."

Rory shrugs, "Whatever. It's definitely provocative."

For a boy who'd been lusting over a nudie magazine for the past several hours, Gale found it a little funny that a bra strap was 'provocative' for Rory.

"I like her peach colored one better," Vick says. "It kinda," he takes his hands and mimes pushing his chest up, "and then she has this little line right in the middle…"

"It's called cleavage," Rory tells him, a little superiorly. "I heard some girls at school saying Gale has a real thing for it."

Gale narrows his eyes. He did, but he wasn't going to discuss it. Not with his increasingly nosey brothers.

Rory flings himself back onto his bed and Gale resumes pressing his own face into his mattress.

"So, which of Undersee's bras is your favorite, Gale?"

He looks up. Rory is trying and failing to look innocent, but he's baiting him.

"Come on, Vick and I said, your turn."

Huffing, Gale pushes his face down into the mattress, refusing to join in.

Gale could remember at least ten different colors, all the straps too loose, prone to falling down. Why she didn't fix them was a mystery, but he enjoyed the little flashes. He was particularly fond of the one with lacey straps, it did wonders for her bust line. She wore it during the summer, under tank tops…

He shook his head. He didn't need to be imagining Madge or her bras.

"I bet she has matching sets, her dad has the money." Rory smirks over at a very confused looking Vick.

"Matching? Aren't both sides the same?"

Rory huffs, "Don't be stupid, of course both sides are the same. I mean her bras probably match her panties."

Gale groans, he doesn't need the thought of Madge in matching bra and panties rattling around in his brain. Visions of her with that lacey bra and a pair of equally shear panties would only lead to a long, restless night.

Vick's mouth forms a little 'o' as he ponders Madge's undergarments. His face deepens in color and Gale wonders if his brother's imagination is as good as his own. Judging by the little grin that forms on Vick's face, his guess is yes.

Rory reaches under his pillow and produces several new magazines. Didn't Thom have better things to waste his hard earned money on?

"I bet she looks good in one of these."

He flops on his stomach, throwing the magazine open. Despite his mind furiously telling him not to, Gale gets ups and walks over to see what fresh hell Rory is about to unleash on him.

The magazine is turned to a voluptuous platinum blonde with wide doe eyes and a pout on her cherry lips. She's wearing some kind of bizarre Capitol contraption, black, with straps and fasteners, frills and lace woven in.

He doesn't understand those people, all that crap would just get in the way in his mind.

Rory doesn't seem to think so, though, just stares, transfixed by the image. Gale doesn't want to even imagine what's running through his mind.

"What a waste of money," Gale mutters, rolling his eyes at his brother. The only thing he can see as appealing about the black getup would be taking it off.

Rory's eyebrows rise and he smirks up at him. "If you had a girl with a body like that, that looked at you like that, you'd buy one." He looks fondly down at the girl, "If Madge Undersee would wear one, I'd buy her it in every color."

You couldn't afford even one.

"It's part of the foreplay, Gale. I guess you wouldn't understand."

Gale smacks him on the back of the head.

Vick pulls one of the other magazines out and begins flipping through it. He stops on a page with a redhead, in an alluring, pink shear bra. Gale can quite clearly see her nipples through the material.

"I like this one. It's pretty." Vick gives the page a bright look. "Rory's one looks uncomfortable."

Gale decides Vick's taste in women's underwear is much simpler, much closer to his own.

Vick pulls the image closer, "But why is there a cut in the pan-" He lowers it shaking his head, "Nevermind, I get it."

Thank god.

Gale takes one of the magazines. It's older than he expects, clearly well used, which is a little concerning, he wonders where Thom got it and how filthy it is.

The girls, he realizes, aren't Capitol models, though they could've been with a little effort. The magazines must be pretty old then. Those weren't cheap, not that he'd know, he'd just been with Thom when he was bartering with some Peacekeepers over some once. Or twice.

Whoever had owned it clearly had a preference, busty blondes in light colors or nothing at all. The pages were worn noticeably. He doesn't blame the guy, they're all very attractive.

"Look, carpet matches the drapes," Rory jabs at one of the photos. One of the few women with any hair on her.

Vick frowns, "Did they make all of them shave?"

They must've, aside from the one Rory had found, which only had a sparse amount, none of the women had even the smallest amount of hair. They were tantalizingly smooth.

"Or waxed them," Rory offers. "One of the guys at school said they do that sometimes."

Vick cringes. He glances down at the magazine, then up to Gale. "Do Town girls shave?"

Gale closes his eyes. He hates to admit to having been a couple of Town girls slum moment, but clearly his brothers already know it had happened. When he opens his eyes both boys are looking at him, expectantly.

"Uh, one did and the other didn't." There, that was enough of an explanation.

Vick nods, "I wonder if Madge does…"

Gale briefly envisions Madge in the shower, then in a tub brimming with bubbles, her lips cherry red and pouting, maybe biting the lower one between her teeth, as she concentrates on shaving her legs. His hand tingles with the thought of the pale, smooth skin gliding under his palm.

He needs to get a handle on his imagination.

His brothers and their interest in female anatomy, lingerie, and body hair were definitely going to make many more long nights for him.

His poor mother, three boys with very painfully active imaginations, no wonder she was so good with laundry.

"She has such light hair, it probably wouldn't matter," Rory says as he cranes his neck up and examines Gale's find. His eyebrows arch up, "Ole Haymitch really has a type, huh?"

Gale freezes, immediately drops the magazine. "What?"

He looks at his hands. He begins praying he hadn't really just been thumbing through Haymitch Abernathy's nasty old magazines. They need to boil water, they need every caustic material they can get their hands on, they're going to have to burn every surface those magazines touched…

"That dirty old bastard gave you these?"

After the hell he'd put Gale through, he went and encouraged this crap in a couple of little boys? He was getting his ass kicked.

Rory jabs the paper, "No. We found them in his bathroom when we were helping mom."

"You stole them!" He isn't sure if he's relieved Haymitch wasn't handing out his surely disgusting magazines or irritated his brother's equally disgusting mind led him to swipe them.

"We're gonna take them back," Vick tells him.

Rory nods, "He has so many, he'll never notice a few gone for just a few days." He shrugs, "Besides, he's been so busy training he doesn't have time to appreciate them right now."

"Appreciate them?"

"Yeah," Rory curls his hand, swings his wrist, "appreciate them."

That's a mental image Gale never knew he didn't need. Haymitch, alone, in his bathroom, with nude pictures. Hastily, he tries to pull the image of Madge bathing back. Better to be a pervert than to have that nightmare cycling through his mind for weeks to come.

Gale walks back to his bed, grabbing his pillow from the floor. He flops onto his thin mattress and covers his head.

After several minutes, something makes a snapping noise and Vick yelps.

"Stop playing with that!"

The condom Rory had been stretching earlier, and had apparently begun doing again, had snapped, flown across the bed, and hit Vick. He didn't seem hurt, just irritated.

"Stop yelling!"

"I would if you weren't such a jerk!"

"You're a jerk!"

"No you are!"

Gale had only just sat up, about to put an end to their shouting match, when, to his horror, his mother sleepily walks in.

"What is going-"

Her sleepy eye widen when she takes in the scene.

Rory still has part of the condom in his hand, is stretching it in preparation to shoot it at Vick who has got the bit of condom that had hit him raised above his head, possibly to throw at Rory.

Gale is simply sitting, half way up, on his bed, a dumbfounded look on his face. His only relief coming from the fact that apparently his brothers had put the nudie magazine away already.

His mother sighs, "Why…"

Her eyes close and she shakes her head. Maybe she doesn't want to know.

She walks over to Rory's bed and pick up one of the condoms, her face darkening in color as she reads the words 'Razzle Dazzle Raspberry'.

Finally, she narrows her eyes at her sons. "This explains why Posy kept asking about 'boy candy'."

Damn it.

"Gale…"

"Yeah," Rory crosses his arms in mock disappointment. "Gale."

"Rory, be quiet." She drops the wrapper, looking a little disgusted. "Gale, there are some things a mother just doesn't need to know, and this is one of them."

He opens his mouth to tell her he hadn't so much as grazed past a girl in months, since before his whipping, but ends up saying, "That crazy housekeeper pushed them on me!"

She gives him an unimpressed look, "And why did you keep them?"

He frowns at her. Gale had considered tossing the condoms, but part of him wondered if he could find an alternate use for them and another, small, very small, hormonally frustrated part of him liked to be wishful of their potential.

His mouth flaps uselessly, no words come out in his defense.

She sighs, "Just, oh, put them somewhere Posy can't get to. I won't be the one explaining them to her if she gets her hands on them again."

After that Gale had taken every last one of the flavored terrors out of the room and hidden them under a loose board in the shed. He, rather sadly, didn't foresee any need for them, and Rory was not going to reach an age when he could use them if he didn't stop being such a pain in the ass.


	7. The Talk, pt 7, or That's Not How That Works

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge had just left the library, picked up a book of music, when she heard her name. She'd just barely turned her head when a small body slammed into her, little arms wrapping tightly around her middle, nearly knocking the air out of her.

"Posy!"

Mrs. Hawthorne came chasing after her youngest child, looking a little flushed.

"I'm so sorry, Madge. She just took off."

Giving the little girl a squeeze, Madge smiled, "Oh, it's okay." She patted Posy on the head, "How are you, Posy?"

Posy bounced back, beaming. "I'm great. momma and I left Haymitch's and we took some laundry to Mrs. Everdeen and Prim and we went to the store and bought some material for a new dress for me and momma said if there's any leftover we can make a little one for my doll an-"

"Posy! Slow down." Mrs. Hawthorne pulled her daughter back to her. She flashed a quick smile over to Madge before giving her daughter's pigtail a tug, "Why don't you go over to the sweet shop and pick something out for you and your brothers."

The fact that she apparently has extra money for such a luxury as candy is a hopeful sign to Madge that she's being well compensated for her troubles with Mr. Abernathy. Being in charge of cleaning his house is a monumental task, the fact that she hadn't thrown up her hands and fled yet was nothing short of a miracle.

In a blink the little girl has grabbed Madge and begun pulling her toward the shop. "Come with me."

Her mother unlatches her hand from Madge's wrist. "No. You go by yourself, just stay where I can see you, alright? I need to talk to Madge."

Madge has the sinking feeling that she knows why she wants to talk to her. It was the event that never wanted to end.

She'd already had to discuss horrible things with her mother and Mr. Abernathy, which she feels is punishment enough for a lifetime.

Posy looks annoyed for a minute, but the draw of sweets is too strong, and she decides she'll talk to Madge soon enough. After she gets her candy, of course.

When she's safely out of earshot but still in her mother's sight, Mrs. Hawthorne sighs.

"Madge, I just wanted to apologize for everything the boys have put you through lately."

Quickly, before anything further can be said, Madge forcefully shakes her head, "It's fine. Really."

She really didn't want to have this conversation with Gale's mother.

"No," Mrs. Hawthorne's color darkens. "I found the, uh, gifts your housekeeper gave Gale."

Madge feels the color drain from her face. Not the flavored condoms!

"I'm just so sorry the gossip mill got a hold of it. Rory just can't keep his mouth shut when he thinks something is funny, and embarrassing Gale is his favorite pastime." She shakes her head, her cheeks brighten, "And for that woman to imply that you…I'm just sorry."

A nervous giggle escapes Madge's throat. Despite being a politician's daughter, she panics, begins babbling almost involuntarily. It's so embarrassing.

"Really, it's okay. I mean, we know I wouldn't do that. Gale and I aren't together." Wait. "Not that I would do that if we were." Wait? What was she saying? "I mean I would." What?! Oh, god. She knows she needs to stop talking, but her mouth can't stop forming words, drizzling them out in an embarrassing non-confession. "I mean, I could, I know ho-no! I don't-I don't know how, I could figure it out, though. Not that I would need to, I mean I would, I could. There's nothing wrong with it, if that's what someone lik-"

Mrs. Hawthorne places a hand on her shoulder, silencing her.

An all consuming dread fills Madge. Had she just told Gale's mother she would perform fellatio on her son? No, she'd just told her she'd learn how to. She isn't sure which is worse.

She can feel her heart beating uncomfortably fast and her cheeks warming. She's such an idiot.

"Madge, honey, it's okay. I wouldn't, um, well, whatever you would or wouldn't do isn't any of my business." She looks a little uncomfortable with the direction the short conversation has taken.

They stand in a very uncomfortable silence for several minutes before Madge sighs.

"Uh, thanks, Mrs. Hawthorne. I'm sorry Mrs. Oberst did that to Gale." He has enough to deal with without having to be given unwanted prophylactics by a hateful old woman.

Mrs. Hawthorne wrinkles her nose. "Gale didn't have to keep them, either."

She opens her mouth, not really certain what to say to that.

Have you seen your son? He was just saving them, because, let's face it, he'll need them eventually.

Yes, that's certainly the way to make her surely tarnished image shine.

Nodding, Madge keeps her eyes anywhere but on Mrs. Hawthorne. She can't keep her mind from wandering to the fact that Gale's mother had full knowledge of what Vick had asked of her, and the thought makes her a little queasy.

They're both saved from having to talk, though, by Posy once again rushing them, squealing with delight.

"Look what I got!" She hoisted a fairly large paper bag up, opening it enough that Madge could see several large chunks of chocolate in it. "He gave it to me for free."

Mrs. Hawthorne's brow wrinkles, not really certain why the shop owner was suddenly feeling so generous. "Why?"

Oblivious to her mother's questioning look, Posy rattles on. "He looked out and saw you and Madge and said, 'Oh that poor girl. You're brother just can't keep it in his pants can he? Now she's knocked up' and I said 'What?'. Then he gave me free chocolate!"

Her eyes narrow as she looks at her mother, "Nobody told me Gale and Madge were knocked up." Her little mouth turns down, "I thought you said Gale couldn't have the sex with Madge, momma? That's how you get knocked up, isn't it?" Eyes widen as she looks to Madge, "Gale's gonna be in big trouble."

Mrs. Hawthorne's hand shoot up to her mouth and she lets out a little gasp. She looks, horrified, to Madge.

Suddenly Madge feels Posy's little hands press to her stomach as the girl lets out a high pitched little squeal. "Oh! Hi, baby!"

"Mrs. Hawthorne, I am notpregnant," Madge assures her. It's not even the remotest possibility. "We aren't doing anything, I promise."

Why does this keep happening?

Mrs. Hawthorne nods, "I know, I know, I'm so very sorry,Madge." She snatches Posy's hands back.

"But momma, I'm pattin' Gale's baby!" Posy struggles against her mother, reaching for Madge's abdomen.

Silently Madge prays no one walks by.

Frantically, Mrs. Hawthorne whispers, "Posy, there's no baby in there."

Posy stops, turns and tilts her head. "Did Gale put it in the wrong spot?" She frowns over at Madge, "I heard Rory say Gale wanted put it between your lips, did he put the baby in your mouth by accident?"

Madge's face is a ball of flames, she can't even respond. Mrs. Hawthorne appears equally mortified.

Oblivious, Posy continues, "I wouldn't worry, as long as you swallowed, I bet the baby made it into your stomach. It just took the long way since Gale didn't use your pee-pee hole to put the baby in."

Both Madge and Gale's mother are caught between absolute humiliation and breaking into horrified laughter at Posy's innocent understanding of how pregnancy worked.

Madge makes a strangled little noise before managing to sputter, "Posy, Gale and I aren't doing anything that would make me pregnant, alright?"

"Don't you like Gale?" Posy's little lip just out.

A little sting hits Madge's heart. "Of course I do Posy. That-"

"Then have a baby with him!" She brightens considerably. "You can use your bed to put the baby in cause Vick said you were too good for the slag heap, and they said your bed is nicer than Gale's." Her wide eyes turn to her visibly flustered mother, "Please, Momma! Let Gale put a baby in Madge!"

She looks back at Madge, "I want you to have a baby, Madge. I could dress it up and comb its hair and feed it…"

She's off rambling about all the things she's going to do with Madge and Gale's nonexistent baby while her mother and Madge stand open mouthed with shock and listen.

Mrs. Hawthorne covers her face with her hands as she mumbles, "I don't know what's wrong with all my children. I promise you, until recently, none of them have been obsessed with that or the results of it."

While Madge is fairly certain Gale had more than a passing interest in that far before recent events, though not as much as the rumors would seem to indicate, she knows Mrs. Hawthorne is being honest about her other children. At least Vick and Posy.

Rory is a completely different story.

"It's okay." Madge forces a smile. She's use to being gossiped about. Like she told Gale, it's simply how they're portraying her that's shifted.

"I just can't seem to rein them in."

Somehow, Madge isn't shocked. The Hawthornes seem, to her to be, a very willful bunch.

Seeming to sense there was no way to salvage the conversation, Posy was still carrying on with her chatter, Mrs. Hawthorne picks up her daughter.

"We'll just be getting home." Her lips pull up into a strained smile, "Really, I'm sorry, Madge. If you need me to have the boys do anything about these rumors, seeing as they pretty much started them, please let me know."

Posy protests, reaching for Madge, making one last effort to convince her to have a baby with Gale.

"Please let Gale put a baby in you. You're so pretty, and Gale's handy-some, and I'mpretty, and momma's pretty, and your momma is pretty, it'll be so cute!"

#######

When Gale walks in, bone weary and sore, he immediately knows his mother is in an odd mood.

She looks like she's going to say something, puts her sewing project in her lap, but is cut off by Posy jumping the floor.

Delighted to see Gale, she runs at full speed and flinging herself at him. He catches her and hoists her up into a hug.

"Gale! Guess who we saw?"

Judging by how his mother cringes slightly, he isn't sure he really wants to know.

"We saw Madge!"

Well, this won't end well.

Gale's gaze flickers to his mother, her expression wary, he knows whatever comes out of Posy's mouth next is going to stir trouble.

"Did you put the baby in the wrong hole?"

That was not what he was expecting.

He stares at her. "What?"

She sits back on his hip, puts her tiny hands on her sides, "Did you put the baby in the wrong hole? With Madge. During the sex." She gives him a lofty look, "The man at the sweet shop said you couldn't 'keep it in your pants' and knocked Madge up, but she said she wasn't pregnant. It goes in the pee-pee hole. I heard Rory and you talking about putting it in her mouth and that's too far, it needs to go in the hole closer to where it comes out."

Her arms cross over her chest and she lifts her chin, thinking she's telling him some very important facts.

For a few painful seconds he just stares at her, dumbfounded. Why can't his siblings have developed a sudden interest in horticulture or bird watching? Why his bedroom activities?

While he's glad his sister hasn't reached the point that she really understands what she's said, it's all just words and a vagueness, the fact that she'd heard enough of he, Rory, and Vick's conversations to put that much together, is a little disconcerting.

"Uh, okay, I'll keep that in mind." As he smother's his brothers for being such loud mouths.

Posy nods, "Yeah, so next time you have the sex put it in the right place. I want a baby." She pauses, her eyes widen, "Maybe you should stick a baby in Madge's butt too! Then we can have twobabies!"

Oh, god, no.

Gale doesn't even know what to say to such flawed and yet brilliant logic.

His mother chokes on her water.

"Posy, no," she rasps between coughs. After several seconds of trying to regain her breath she mutters, "I have never been so embarrassed."

"But I want a baby." She juts her lower lip out, bats her eyes, "Please, Gale?" She leans in conspiratorially, "I'm even getting momma to say you can use Madge's bed when you put the baby in."

Great.

Because that's what all the trouble was really about. Location.

She sits back grinning, certain she's just secured herself a new niece or nephew.

"Posy, no. Gale and Madge aren't having a baby. Get down and go play."

Making a face, lip jutting out in a pout, Posy lets Gale set her down, then drags her feet as she goes back to her spot by the couch. Gale notices she's taken all her dolls and sat them around her. She gathers them up, gives her mother a hard look, then stomps off to the bedroom.

"She's practicing," his mother shakes her head when she sees he's noticed what his sister has sat up. "For when the baby comes." She sighs. "Poor Madge."

Gale feels a twinge of annoyance. Poor Madge? Poor Gale. He's the one dealing with his increasingly hormonal brothers and their wandering, filthy, imaginations and the creeps at work who, though they've let up some, still occasionally ask him how banging the Mayor's little princess is. He's the one having crazy housekeepers push condoms on him in the middle of the store. He's the one losing sleep over dreams of lingerie and smooth skin then having to go work in the mines every day.

Now his little sister is trying to use him as her own personal toy maker, with the toys being his unborn children, with Madge Undersee.

"Madge is just fine." She'd said as much herself. In fact, she'd seemed amused by the entire thing.

"She has most of the District thinking she's let you get her pregnant." She gives him a weary look. "I assure you, she probably isn't really okay."

Alright, he does feel a little bad about that. His brothers had started this mess after all, but Madge was smart, and had surprisingly thick skin. If she needed his help he wouldn't hesitate to give it, but he doubted she would require it.

"Well," Gale frowns, popping his neck, "she's not pregnant and in nine months when no baby comes they'll all know it."

She nods, "And youwouldn't get her pregnant either."

Gale feels a little irritated. Does she not think he's good enough for Madge either?

His wounded ego beats out his lethargic mind, and before he can stop himself he's saying, "I couldget her pregnant."

His mother's eyebrows arch up, "I'm so glad to know it." She presses her lips together, "I meant you have more sense than to do that."

Cringing, he nodded. He was tired and jumping to the wrong conclusion. "Sorry."

He certainly wouldn't get her or anyone pregnant now. Two boxes of flavored and ribbed condoms would make certain of that.

She gives him a faint smile, "I know, honey. I just wish people had something better to gossip about. Neither one of you deserve this."

With a faint smile, Gale starts to tell her about Haymitch's wild disease rumors, he really should let her know before someone else does, when the door flies open.

Rory and Vick stumble in, carrying an empty laundry bag behind them.

Gale frowns, "Where have you two been?"

His mother hadn't done laundry since the whipping, there was no reason for the two of them to be wandering around with the bag.

"We had to make a delivery." Rory tells him, tossing the bag to the corner.

Gale gives his mother a puzzled look.

She wrinkles her nose. "Haymitch had a collection of shirts that belonged to the Mayor. The Undersees apparently have a stock of clothing for his exclusive use when he passes out at their house and they want to send him home in something clean. He told me Madge came out once a month to gather things up and get them cleaned, so I laundered everything and sent it back so she didn't have to." A small gesture considering her children had almost single handedly smeared the girl's name. She gestures to Vick and Rory, "They just dropped it off for me." She leans forward and mouths the words, 'I didn't want Posy making contact again'.

Fantastic.

Knowing that was a dangerous move, his mother narrows her eyes at the two boys. "You behaved yourselves didn't you?"

Vick nods.

Rory begins laughing, "Vick asked her if she shaved."

"Vick…" His mother presses her fingers to her temples.

"What?" He looks genuinely confused. "It's a hygiene question. Not a sex question."

Rory grins at Gale, whispering, "The answer is 'yes', if you're wondering."

He was, but he really didn't need to know.

"You said no sex questions. I just asked about shaving. And doctor questions."

His mother frowns, her eyes tired, "Doctor questions?"

Gale has the sudden, unfortunate realization he knows what's coming next.

Vick nods, completely serious. "Yeah, I asked her if pelvic exams hurt. The medical book had a diagram, and they showed them inserting the spe-cu-lum and doing the swabs, I guess you know about all that, 'cause you're a girl. Anyway, that thing is all metal and looks uncomfortable. I was just curious and I've never seen you go to the doctor and she's from Town and all, so I figured she would know." He takes a long breath, "I asked if they really feel for the ovaries when they palipate, palp-it-ate her stomach and I asked her if she ever had felt for her cervix, 'cause the book said some girls can."

His brow wrinkles, "She didn't tell me. I think doctor visits might traumatize her."

Gale bites back telling Vick that his visits probably traumatize her.

Their mother slumps down a little, arms on the table.

"Vick, sweetie, you cannotask girls those-"

"You're home!" Posy comes racing out of the bedroom, one of her dolls dragging behind her.

Gale hopes her short attention span has caused her to forget their earlier conversation. Heaven help him, he doesn't want her telling Rory about how she assumes twins are created.

He should've known better, he just isn't that lucky.

"Did Madge say anything?" She asks them expectantly.

Probably 'leave and never come back'.

Vick frowns, "About what?"

Their mother makes to stop her, but Posy is young and quick and has the words out before she can stop them.

"About having a baby with Gale!"

Both Vick and Rory stare blankly.

"She isn't having a baby with Gale." Vick looks perplexed.

Rory shrugs, "According to the rumors I've heard at school she is."

"You knew about that rumor?" Their mother's mouth drops. Rory never shuts up, him not mentioning it, especially to annoy Gale, is baffling.

"Well it's not true," Rory rolls his eyes. "She's outta Gale's league. That's what I keep telling everyone, even though that's pretty obvious. He wouldn't even get close enough to her to get her pregnant."

Gale slaps the back of his head.

Rory rubs the spot, "What?"

Posy puts her hands on her hips and glares at Rory, "What do you mean he won't get close enough to get her pregnant? Gale and Madge are going to have a baby."

Rory arches his eyebrows, "Unless Gale's some fertility god, he's about as likely to put a bun in that oven as he is of going to the Capitol."

"I want them to have a baby," she told him. As though that settled things.

"They aren't having a baby," his mother groans.

Posy ignores her, "I want two babies!"

Vick huffs, "You don't get to just decide to have two babies, Posy."

She shoots him a snotty look. Gale lunges out, tries to stop what he knows is coming, but he, like his mother, is too slow.

"Uh-huh! Gale just has to put one in her butt. It's a lot closer to her stomach than her mouth." She informs them loftily.

Damn it.

The room is silent for what seems to be an eternity. Then Rory makes an inhuman noise before dissolving into laughter.

"Yeah, Vick." He gasps, "Gale just has to put it in her butt. Obviously."

Vick's nose wrinkles, he's an expert on female anatomy at this point, and he's trying to work out how exactly putting anything in that particular orifice would result in pregnancy. He pales a little as he finally realizes what Rory means.

"Rory!" Their mother stands, hands in her hair. "Don't-we-don't-"

Gale closes his eyes. He needs to make a trip to the loose board in the shed later.

If his kids are going to be anything like his siblings, he's going to start wearing condoms twenty-four hours a day.

He can't handle much more of this.


	8. The Talk, pt 8, or Things We Didn't Need to Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge loved Vick, she really did. He was adorable and chatty and liked to spend time with her, something that was rare in regards to her. The only other person that talked to her as much as he did was Mr. Abernathy, which she realized was a little sad. And as much as she liked the silent companionship she shared with Katniss, it was nice to have a friend that wanted to be around her and spoke to her for more than a few sentences at a time.

And wasn't a raging alcoholic.

Lately, however, she was beginning to miss the Mr. Abernathy's drunken rambles. At least they didn't end with her flushed and embarrassed.

Well, most of the time.

When Vick and Rory had shown up on her back porch, bringing the clothes her family so often provided Mr. Abernathy back, freshly laundered, just hours after Posy had begged her to let Gale put a baby in her, she knew, just knew, something was going to be asked of her that would embarrass the socks off her.

And she was not disappointed.

Vick always looked so perfectly innocent. Then he'd hit her with some newfound knowledge about sex or the human body. It shouldn't have surprised her, but somehow it always did.

His first question, if she shaved, seemed innocent enough, though at first she'd been confused, they'd seen her in shorts, surely they could've guessed she shaved.

Belatedly, after she'd already answered and they'd left for home, she realized he probably hadn't meant her legs.

The real doozy came next though, after she'd let Rory go upstairs to use the bathroom in her room, Mrs. Oberst would have a fit if he used the downstairs one. She realized, a millisecond after she'd told him to go, it was probably a bad idea.

Vick's mouth went a little flat and his eyes focused on the fudge she'd given him in his hand, battling in his mind, probably over whether or not what he was about to ask was appropriate.

Madge guessed no, but she doubted he'd come to that conclusion. She wasn't wrong.

"Does a pelvic exam hurt?"

Madge felt her eyes widen, the color rise on her cheeks. Why would it matter? He wasn't going to get one. "Excuse me?"

"I know it's meant to have things stuck in it, and it stretches, but…" Vick set his fudge down, dusting his hands off, raising them up to eye level so to better demonstrate. "The book has a picture diagram of pelvic exams and they take this metal thing, it's called a spe-cu-lum, and put it-"

Madge waved her hands. She knew what came next, and she didn't need a ten year old miming it in her kitchen.

She couldn't even form the sentence to tell him he did not need that information and that he should lay off the medical books.

Vick waited a minute, but seemed to take the stunned silence as a sign he could finish. He continued on, hand gestures and all.

"It also said they put two fingers in the vagina and they can push up and feel the ovaries if they push on the stomach." He took two fingers, jabbing them upward toward his other hand, resting on an invisible stomach, feeling nonexistent ovaries. "Do they really do that? That seems weird, and wouldn't the metal pinch?"

She flinched, but he didn't seem to notice.

"And it said they feel for the cervix, and some women can feel their own cervix."

Oh, god. She knew what was coming next.

"Have you ever felt your cervix?"

Why didn't he ask his mother these questions?

Mentally she scolded herself, they were from the Seam, his mother had probably never been to the Town doctor, and she really doesn't see any of the healers in the Seam using metal speculums and checking ovaries. She might be wrong though.

"I asked Gale if he'd ever felt one." He told her quickly. "I figured he must've. He's taken a bunch of girls up to the slag heap so it was bound to have happened, but he said he hadn't. I think maybe he just didn't know what he was feeling."

I don't need this information.

Madge cringed, trying very hard not to imagine Gale's strong hands and what they might've, probably had at some point, done, up at the slag heap. Her mind immediately formed his calloused, worn hands, running up her sides, squeezing her thighs…

When did she develop such a dirty mind?

"He's got really big hands, and his fingers are pretty long, so it-"

"Vick," Madge took a very deep breath, banishing the image from her imagination and battling the butterflies in her stomach and the sudden flush of her cheeks. "Gale probably wouldn't want you discussing what he does, up at the slag heap or anywhere else, with people."

Least of all her.

He bit his lip and nodded. "I didn't mean for that to be a sex question."

She smiled, nodded, she knew he hadn't. He was just too curious for his own good.

"Vick, some things just need to be a mystery for a while." A very long while in his case.

Rory came bounding back down the stairs, a deviant grin on his face, and Madge worried what she would find in her bathroom.

"Let's go, Vick."

Vick gave Madge a quick hug then ran for the door, apparently racing Rory, who hung back. When he was sure his younger brother was out of ear shot, he leaned toward Madge and whispered, a little loudly.

"You know, if you need help finding your cervix, or your ovaries, I bet Gale would help you. He has pretty long fingers, and he really needs an anatomy lesson." He wagged his eyebrows at her and grinned. "Might even throw in a free breast exam too."

Madge reached out and slapped the back of his head as Gale so often did.

When she finally closed the door, after they were well on their way, she sighed.

"Did you have a good visit with your boyfriend's brothers?"

Her mother had floated into the kitchen. She wasn't looking at Madge, was poking at the fudge the boys had abandoned on the counter.

"Yes, mother."

Hoping to make a hasty escape, get upstairs and figure out what horrible thing Rory had probably done to her bathroom, Madge heads for the stairs.

"They're so cute," her mother murmurs. "But you don't want to be having any babies quite yet, love."

Not you too.

She doubts she heard the rumor through the gossip mill. It was probably just a cruel coincidence that she brought it up now.

"Don't worry, mother. You have me well stocked in condoms, remember?"

Madge wishes she didn't remember. But she did. Frequently. She'd even opened one of the packages, out of curiosity, and been so horrified by it she locked the drawer. As if they could somehow escape and attack her.

After that she'd tried to throw them out, but they somehow always managed to find their way back to her drawer.

"Yes, love, I remember." Her mother's brow creases a little as she looks down at the fudge, "But only one has disappeared. You didn't let the Hawthorne boy convince you to let him just pull out did you? Because that doesn't work."

Pull out of wha-oh!

"Mother!" Madge nearly trips, "No! God, no."

Why can't her mother be normal and preach abstinence?

She glares, "Why are you counting them?"

Her mother shrugs again, "It's a very common practice in the Seam, and he's very handsome, I just didn't want him to charm you into it."

Madge tries not to roll her eyes. Gale was a great many things, but charming was hardly one of them. "Well he hasn't."

"Hmm," her mother takes a bite of fudge. "Is he circumcised?"

What does that even mean?

"They didn't use to circumcise boys in the Seam."

Madge's nose wrinkles. "I'm afraid to ask, but," she sighs, it's a mistake to finish this question, she knowsit, "what's 'circumcised'?"

Her mother pauses mid bite, tilts her head. With an airy sigh, her mother juts out her finger, "A penis-"

Oh, god.

She shouldn't have asked.

"-has this bit of skin over it, like a little sweater. In a circumcision the doctors in Town trim-"

Madge holds up her hand, she doesn't want to hear anymore.

"I don't know if Gale is circumcised." God she isn't sure she wants to know. She's sure she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to think about Gale or his penis.

"You haven't noticed?" Her mother looks beyond baffled. "I remembered you had those medical books when you were younger. They had circumcised penises in them, I thought you would've noticed…"

"How do you-" Madge stops herself. She definitely doesn't want to know how her mother came by her knowledge about Seam penises and sex practices. She covers her face, "I haven't noticed because I haven't seen his penis, because I'm not having sex with Gale."

Why does it always come back to this?

Her mother smiles serenely, apparently missing Madge's discomfort, "Well now at least you'll know when you see it."

She won't be seeing it.

Thinking her mother is through dispensing her bizarre knowledge of male anatomy, Madge begins her escape attempt again.

"He seems like a clean boy." Clearly her mother has a bit more wisdom to impart. "If he isn't circumcised, though, they get this white-"

Madge covers her ears. She doesn't want to hear it. She takes her hands down when she sees her mother smiling.

"I just want you to know, love."

He heart is in the right place. A very weird place, but the right place.

"I know, mom, I know."

Her mother hands her a chunk of fudge and Madge accepts it. Maybe her embarrassment quota was filled for the day.

#######  
Gale was ready to collapse once they'd finished dinner, during which Posy had begged him repeatedly to put a baby in Madge.

"Okay," she'd finally sighed, beyond exasperated he wasn't fulfilling her desire for a new plaything. "One baby is enough. But make sure you knock her up good this time."

Please stop.

He really missed the woods. There, at least, he wasn't being driven to contemplate throttling his siblings.

Falling face down he hopes he falls into a deep sleep quickly without any dream of babies or baby making activities.

"So," Rory starts, "twins come from buttsex. Intriguing."

What's intriguing is how I haven't killed you yet.

Gale groans, "Shut up and go to sleep."

"Are you gonna dream about making twins with Madge?"

Well he certainly was if they didn't stop talking about it.

Gale turns his head, glaring at his brother. "I'm gonna dream about strangling you with a 'Berry Blast' condom if you don't shut up."

Rory laughs, flopping back on his bed. He sits up, "Don't even try and tell me you don't have dreams about her. I've heard you moaning in your sleep."

Gale narrows his eyes a little more, he does not moan in his sleep.

"And I remember you having to change your sheets quite a bit."

Gale flings his pillow at him. That hadn't happened in…a while.

"Why would you have to chang-oh," Vick, who'd been watching the exchange from his bed, deepened in color. "Nevermind."

Rory starts making out with his hand, making sloppy, squishy noises and moaning 'Oh, Gale!' in a high girlie voice.

Huffing, Gale turns his head and closes his eyes, maybe Rory will get laryngitis at school. Not hearing his obnoxious voice for a few days would be nice.

"She has her bras organized by color."

Gale shoots up. "What?"

How the hell would Rory know that?

"That got your attention." Rory smirks, lounging lazily on his bed.

"How do you know?" Vick wrinkles his nose.

"Remember when she let me use the bathroom. I sneaked a peak." He waves his hands in the air, envisioning the drawer. "Purple, blue, and black, assorted lace and silk."

You little pervert.

"Panties are the same way."

You giant pervert.

He can't believe Madge was so clueless as to have let the little bastard in her room unsupervised. Didn't she know what teenage boys were like?

She's lucky Rory hadn't stolen her underwear.

"Would you like me to give you a detailed description, make your dreams a little more realistic?"

Gale nearly fumbles, tells him his dreams are painfully realistic enough as it is, but he manages to stop himself.

"You two are unbelievable," Gale glares out at them instead. One of them creeps around in her room, riffling through her intimate apparel, and the other is asking her about very embarrassing medical exams.

They're both lucky she still talks to them. Quite frankly, if he were Madge's father, he'd have them all thrown in the stocks just for being irritating bastards to his only daughter.

"I was just curious," Vick mumbles. "Girl anatomy is interesting."

Yes it is.

"Especially if you go by Posy's understanding." Rory snickered. "I can just imagine mom and Madge's face when she started talking about swallowingthe baby." He looks at Gale in feigned awe, "You are a talented man, sperm so powerful you can just pick a hole and make a kid."

Gale really doesn't want to discuss his sperm or its supernatural qualities with Rory. He doesn't want to think about it anywhere near Madge or her orifices. He wants to forget flavored condoms and girlie magazines and lingerie. He just wants to sleep. Is that so much to ask?.

"Well, Madge would have to be ovulating to get pregnant no matter what."

No.

Vick grabs his book, one of many Gale should set on fire, and flips through it. Why is the library not asking for them back yet? He supposes there isn't a high demand for medical literature. Clearly his brother is the only one boning up on lady parts.

"If you have sex the few days leading up to ovulation or the day of, those are the days you'll increase your chances of getting pregnant, because according to this, in optimal conditions, sperm can live up to five days in a woman." Vick looks up, "You could be talking to a woman and she might have sperm inside her."

Gale closes his eyes, that's a fantastic thought to end his day with.

"So we'd need to figure out when she's ovulating." Gale hears Rory say.

He doesn't even open his eyes. "Why would we need to do that?"

He isn't having sex with Madge, no matter how stressed out he was feeling or how appealing it was increasingly sounding. Unless she showed up naked and begging, it wasn't happening.

Though, really, the begging part was optional. She could just ask nicely. He wasn't too demanding.

Crap. Now he was going to have a new dream to fight off.

Rory arched his eyebrows, "You don't want to disappoint Posy, do you?" His eyes flickered to Vick, "Didn't you say the cervix feels different at different times?"

Vick looks delighted his knowledge of the female body was finally being acknowledged, he grins, nodding wildly, "Yeah! During ovulation it feels like lips."

"Well, there you go." He smirks at Gale, "All you have to do is a quick little check of Madge's cervix then get busy. Shouldn't be too hard, she's pretty small and you have nice long fingers."

Gale gets up, stomps over to Rory, "So help me, if you mention me putting my fingers in her one more time…"

"What?" Rory widens his eyes innocently, "You'll have another wet dream?"

With a snarl, Gale dives for Rory, his brother leaps from his bed, though. He rolls away, cackling, then jumps onto Gale's bed. "Too slow." He looks down at his feet. "Do I need to sanitize my socks after being on here?"

You won't need socks when I get through with you.

"Any other signs our big brother needs to look for, Vick?"

Vick, who'd dissolved into a giggling mess, nods, "Uh, the cervix will be higher in the vagina and she should have slippery cervical mucus. And her breasts may be sore."

His giggles increase and he falls back into his pillow.

You're next.

"There you go, Gale," Rory waves his hand to Vicks now discarded book. "Take your manly fingers and go up nice and high and find that cervix, and you'll know you found the cervical mucus because we all know you wouldn't be able to get her all hot and bothered even with foreplay."

Chest heaving he dives at Rory, catching him by the foot. He's going to kill him, he's going to throttle the life right out of him and no one will stop him. Then he's going after the giggling mess that is Vick.

He sits on Rory, gets him in a headlock and gives him a little shake.

"You little shit," Gale growls.

Rory laughs again, a little raspy, then wheezes out, "I guess you could just ask her if her boobs are hurting her."

Then he swings his arm back, catching Gale in the ribs. He wiggles from his grasp and runs for the door only to be met by their mother.

"What are the three of you doing in here?"

Gale starts to tell her he's attempting murder, but Rory gives his side of the story first.

"We were helping Gale figure out when Madge will be at her most fertile. He's busy, so he needs to plan his baby making time carefully."

Their mother closes her eyes. Clearly, she's over being the parent of hormonal boys.

"I knew I should've stayed out when I heard 'cervical mucus'," she mutters to herself. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "If any of you ask that poor girl about any part of her body or its function I'll ground you until you're thirty."

In Rory's case, Gale would've made it until the little shit's balls shriveled up and fell off, but his mother was the boss.

Rory snickers, "What if he just stumbles across the information during an exam."

She gives him a withered look, "Unless Gale suddenly got a medical degree, I'd better not hear about him giving any kind of female exams."

Gale snorted, if any of them was going to end up in women's services, it was definitely Vick, who'd managed to sweep his book of pelvic exam diagrams off his bed and out of their mother's sight, clever bastard.

Sighing, she shakes her head, turns and leaves, "Go to sleep boys."

Gale gets up, stomping over to Rory's bed and snatching the dirty magazines from under his pillow then kicking up the loose board and taking those as well.

"I'm taking these back to Thom and Haymitch." He's done with this. "And Vick is taking those books back to the library."

Both boys begin to protest, but Gale snarls, silencing them.

He loves his siblings, he really does, but much more of this and he'll be driven to desperate measures.

And anyone who'd met Rory would probably sympathize.


	9. The Talk, pt 9, or Endings and Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale comes home the next day for an unexpected lunch. The mines are closed for a few hours due to one of the elevators stalling out. He takes the opportunity to go home and grab the magazines so he can get them to Thom and then the Victors Village directly after work.

He nearly trips when he crosses the threshold into his family's home.

"What the-"

He picks up one of the articles and nearly falls back into the door.

Baby clothes.

His mother comes from her room, rubbing her eyes.

"Posy, you can't-" She catches sight of Gale, looking horrified, holding up the baby dress. "Oh, Gale…"

He covers his eyes, "What is all this?"

His mother grimaces, "Well…"

"I told the neighbor you put twins in Madge!" Posy bounds from behind her mother, her baby doll in a too big dress dragging behind her. "She broughtall her old baby stuff for you."

She delightedly begins plucking up tiny, faded dresses, holding them up for Gale's inspection.

Rory and Vick, who'd both been hiding on the couch, peeked over. Rory's eyes twinkling with mischief.

"All those condoms and you couldn't wrap it up for even one hole?" Rory shakes his head. "Or were you just a little quick on the draw?"

Gale picks up one of the cloth diapers and attempts to hurl it at his brother's head, but it only unfurls and falls harmlessly to the ground.

"I told her Madge wasn't pregnant, that the two of you weren't together, but she said she'd heard rumors of marriage," his mother shoots and irritated glare at Rory and Vick, "and she just didn't believe me."

Vick looked appropriately ashamed, but Rory snickered.

"I told her Madge wouldn't even let you see anything, let alone put 'little Gale' inher."

Gale starts to stomp over, but Posy's little voice stops him.

"I don't want 'little Gale' in Madge," she stomps her foot. "I want a girl!"

Rory grins, "Well 'little Gale' has to go in if you want any-"

"RORY!" His mother shouts, probably the whole block hears her. She narrows her eyes at him, points her finger, "Don't tell your sister that stuff."

Rory actually cringes, nods, sinks down into the couch.

Vick, walks over to a tearful Posy, pats her head. "You don't get to pick if you get a girl or a boy, Posy."

She doesn't like that answer. "But he has the boy candy! Madge just needs to eat one of the pink ones and she'll have a girl!"

Their mother shakes her head, "Posy, no…"

Vick, feeling it's his duty to inform his sister of just how wrong she was, while still realizing she was too little to grasp it as well as he did, smiled. "Posy, you don't eat those."

Sighing dramatically, as only a five year old could do, Posy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, 'cause the baby goes in her pee-pee hole. So use the pink boy candy to put the baby in." Of course. It was so simple, why hadn't Gale through of that? "Then you can put another in her-"

His mother covers Posy's mouth, she just can't handle hearing it again. She glares out at her sons. This is all their fault.

There's a knock at the door, Gale isn't sure who could possibly be coming by, but they'd put a stop to the nonsense, so they were welcome.

His coworker, Sanderson, is standing there with his skinny bird faced wife. She gives Gale a sympathetic smile.

"Neil and I just heard from Mrs. Colins you were having twins, and I just had to bring you some of our old things. It's so hard starting out with a baby, and having two! Goodness! My sister and her husband did it and it was terrible, just terrible." She hands him a bag, filled with cloth diapers and dusty receiving blankets.

Gale shakes his head, "Thanks, but, I'm not having a baby."

Not one. Not two. Not with Madge or anyone else.

Sanderson's wife's eyes widen. "They aren't yours?"

Shit. Shit. Shit. That isn't what he meant.

She turns to her husband shaking her head, a knowing looking in her eyes, "Those Town girls, you just can't trust them to keep their legs together."

Oh god.Now Gale was ruining Madge's reputation.

"No, Mrs. Sanderson, Madge doesn't have a problem keeping her legs together." Why do people always jump to the worst conclusion? "She isn't pregnant. At all."

"Are you sure?" She asks, looking as though she won't believe him no matter what he says.

"I'm positive."

Mrs. Sanderson frowns, "Then why are you marrying her?"

"She wouldn't have to be preg-" He presses his fingers to his eyes. "I'm not marrying her, alright?"

He isn't marrying her, not for the endorphins, not for babies, not for the surely blissful sight of her panties, he isn't marrying her or having sex with her and he wishes people would stop reminding him of it.

Not that he needed reminding, he knew it, no matter how much his body refused to accept that knowledge.

She looks around, a little sheepishly, then whispers, "Is it because of the parvo?"

"I don't have the parvo!" For the love of all things…why won't that die?

"My son is very clean," his mother comes to his side, giving the Sandersons a hard look. "I don't know what you've heard, but he doesn't have any diseases."

Well at least his mother believes in him.

"He has a reputation-"

"Oh, and the people of this District have never gotten the facts wrong?" His mother sweeps her hands down to the pile of baby items littering their living room floor. "The fact that a bunch of children have convinced everyone that my son has gotten a girl pregnant proves people are more interested in a scandal than the truth."

The color is high on her cheeks as she points to the door.

"Thank you for your concern for Gale, but please leave."

Looking as though they don't know what's just happened, the Sandersons leave and Gale's mother shuts the door firmly behind them.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. "Gale…"

He grabs her and pulls her into a hug, he's never been so grateful for her in his life.

"Thank you."

Gale had nearly shoves the girlie magazine down a bewildered looking Thom's throat after work, not even stopping to acknowledge his friend's laughing question of if he needed another.

"You still seem tense!" He shouted at his back.

"Undersee holding out on you?" One of the men asked, "My wife did that when she was pregnant. Don't worry, son, soon enough she won't want to crawl off you."

Gale groaned, covering his face. He didn't even want to respond to the insanity anymore.

He took off for the Victor's Village, praying he didn't run into Katniss or Mellark. He didn't want to explain to them why he had a bag filled with nudie magazines in his possession.

He was just a few steps from Haymitch's back door when he spotted the sources of his misery, hiding in the overgrown bushes by the porch.

"What are you doing here?"

Shit, please tell him his mother hadn't come over for work. Normally she didn't, it wasn't one of her days, surely she would've told him earlier when he'd gone home for lunch. He hoped she didn't, he really didn't want to explain his bag to her.

"I came to talk some sense into you." Rory crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't think you realize how important those magazines are to me."

Gale groans. He's perfectly aware of how important Rory thinks those magazines are to him. He'd been that age once. He still felt that age more and more frequently. After listening to Rory's painfully detailed descriptions of Madge's undergarments, though, the night before, having horribly vivid dreams, he was less than sympathetic.

"They're stolen. I'm returning them to their disgusting owner."

He stomps past his brothers, up the step, then banging on the door.

There's some cursing from inside, something falls over, then the door swings open.

Haymitch, bleary eyed and frowning, glares out at him. His expression morphs into amusement, though, when he realizes who it is.

"If you're looking for your darling cousin and her fiancé, they went to the school to climb ropes or some crap like that."

Gale shoves the bag into the old drunk's chest. "I'm not here for Katniss."

He turns to leave without an explanation, talking to Haymitch is a futile effort at best, but stops when he hears chuckling behind him.

"Dogs and trees not cutting it for you? Had to borrowed some reading material?"

Vick's hand shoot up to his mouth and Rory lets out a snort of laughter. Gale growls.

He has had it with his innuendos and rumors of disease. Turning, he shoves Haymitch roughly back through the door. When they're both in the kitchen he slams it behind him, to the protests of his brothers.

"My brothers found those filthy things when they were helping my mother." He jabs a finger into Haymitch's chest. "It could have just as easily been my mother to find them. I would appreciate it if you'd take your pervy pastimes and put them somewhere they won't all stumble across them again."

To Gale's increasing irritation, Haymitch's smirk widens, "You think your poor mother can't guess what a single man does for entertainment."

I'm going to throw up.

He slaps the magazines against his palm, "And you can't tell me you and those boys didn't enjoy these photographic endeavors."

That wasn't the point.

Gale knew Haymitch was goading him, it seemed to be in his list of favorite things to do, irritate Gale with suggestive comments and implications about anything he knew would get a rise out of him.

He'd been dealing with this crap for too long, in a fit of irritation he grabs Haymitch around the neck. They begin a sad little scuffle, Gale knocking Haymitch into the counter then Haymitch pushing Gale headlong into an open cabinet. His hand shoots to his lip, he tastes metal, but he doesn't have time to process it before Haymitch is on him again.

It's stupid, but Gale is actually enjoying the fight. At least it's giving him something to focus on other than his dirty dreams.

His brother's and their recent exploits had sent him spiraling back to when he'd first noticed girls and it had resulted in many a frustratingly long nights and more than a few times he'd had to pour frigid rainwater over his head to banish less than pure thoughts from his mind.

It took a great amount of effort not to have those dreams crop up on the occasions he saw Madge.

God he was a pervert.

Maybe if he was battered and bruised, he'd sleep restfully.

And, honestly, he felt he might've deserved to have his butt handed to him. He shouldn't have been having those dreams, he shouldn't have been imagining Madge doing those things to him, he shouldn't have been having such visceral reactions to those things. It wasn't fair to her. She deserved better than to be a distraction.

Yeah, he needed to have some sense beat into him, and Haymitch Abernathy was just the one to do it.

Still, he needed to fight back just a little, the dirty bastard had made everyone believe he had Dutch elm disease.

They trip over a chair, the source of the crashing earlier, and somehow Gale comes out on top, pushing Haymitch's face into the floor beside the table.

"What are you doing?"

Both men, pause, look over to see a pair of blondes standing in the doorframe, Gale's brothers, looking shocked and excited, behind them.

Gale rolls off Haymitch and pushes himself up while Madge's mother flitters over, drops to her knees and examines the damage he's done to the old man.

She lets out one of her airy sighs as she runs one of her pale fingers over a cut above his eye, he flinches. "I'll go find the first aid kit." She stands and starts out, toward the front room and the stairs. "Is it in the bathroom, Haymitch?"

Gale is pleased to see the color drain from Haymitch's face as he scrambles to his feet, still panting from the fight, "Don't know, 'Tilda. Let me help you."

He chases after her and Gale snorts. It would serve him right if she found whatever nasty things he had hidden in his toilet. Though why Madge's mother would be any different than Gale's own he doesn't know.

Before he turns back to his brothers something cold and wet comes into contact with his lip and he nearly jumps away before realizing it's Madge with a washrag.

She shakes her head. "You're a mess, Gale."

Gently she dabs at this injury, her cool little fingers turn his chin, inspecting him for further scrapes. He watches her face as she concentrates on cleaning him. She has her lower lip between her teeth and her nose scrunched, a crease forms between her eyes. He becomes acutely aware of how close she's standing, her breath ghosting across his skin, the scent of her shampoo…

Gale's mind flickers. He has some much better parts for her to be so studiously cleaning.

Stop that!

Her face is too much, too close, so he looks down, which is worse idea. She's wearing his favorite lacey bra, he's sure the strap has fallen down her shoulder under her sweater. He can see it doing its good work, her bust line peaking perfectly at him from under her shirt.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and gently makes her take a step back. "I can take it from here."

She looks a little disappointed as she hands him the rag. "Do you need an ice pack?"

I need an ice shower.

"Watch out, Madge, you rub up on him like that he won't be able to walk home."

Gale's neck nearly snaps, he turns to Rory so fast. The little shit is smirking, then shrugs mouth gaping, as if to say 'what?'

When he turns back to Madge to apologize he catches her eyes jumping back up. She takes a step back, pink rising on her pale cheeks.

"Though maybe you should," Rory continues. Gale considers sewing his mouth shut, he'd be doing the world a favor. "He hasn't seen any action that isn't paper based in quite a while, and you know what they say: Use it or lose it."

Vick's eyes widen in concern, his mouth drops a fraction, "What?"

Rory nods sagely. "Yep. Once you start, if you stop, it just shrivels up and falls off."

Dear god. Was there a book out there that said middle brothers were duty bound to drive their older brothers to drinking and give horribly inaccurate information to their younger ones? There had to be, it was the only explanation for all the nonsense that came out of Rory's mouth lately.

Vick shakes his head, "Uh-uh. I didn't read anything about that."

"Because it isn't true," Gale quickly tells him. Rory is a menace. How does he come up with this stuff? He needs to get him into some kind of hobby, something that will let him focus on anything other than his and girls' bodies.

"Sure it is. Same thing with boobs. Haven't you noticed how saggy the women's get when they stop feeding." Rory's eyebrows rise, emphasizing the supposed brilliance of his stupid theory.

For a millisecond, Vick's eyes flicker to Madge then back to Rory. His nose wrinkles a little, "Uh-Uh."

"Uh-huh." Rory smirks, looking to Madge, "I'm sorry, but the only way to save your magnificent boobs is to milk them regularly after you stop having kids." He just barely keeps from laughing, "Gale's probably really good at milking. Like I said, it's been a while." He makes a crude gesture with his hand, "He's been having to resuscitating the little guy."

He isn't little!

Gale wonders how upset their mother will really be if they show up at home a brother short. He looks to Madge, who seems baffled for a moment before her mouth drops a hair, as if suddenly realizing what Rory had said. Her lips press into a thin line and her eyes widen. She crosses her arms over her chest protectively, opens her mouth to say something, which Gale dearly hopes is to tell him to ensure Rory never reproduces, but she's cut off by the return of her mother and Haymitch.

"See, Haymitch," her mother smiles serenely at the scene. "I told you they weren't doing anything."

Haymitch gives him a little sneer, and Gale has the sudden urge to tell him he and Madge had just finished doing filthy things on his kitchen table, but then he remembers his dirty minded brothers are standing right there and thinks better of it.

"Of course we aren't," Madge shakes her head, looking a little annoyed at the implication.

Gale feels a flare of irritation. Why not? Then he comes to his senses and squelches it out.

"Madge doesn't even know if he's circumcised," her mother tells him, as though that will settle the matter.

Gale feels his face burst into flames. Why would they be discussing his penis? Not that he minds. There are worse parts of his body for them to be discussing.

"Mother!" Madge is redder than he'd yet seen her. The crimson on her cheeks is spreading across her neck, down her chest, across the tops of her breasts…

Gale quickly looks away.

He and his brothers all stare, slack jawed at her mother. Clearly, dinner table conversation at the Undersee household was every bit as bizarre as the Hawthorne family's had been recently.

"Mother!"

"Of course she hasn't," Haymitch narrows his eyes at Gale, as though he's the one wanting to discuss his private parts in public. "She's too smart to let his crab infested pubs near her."

"Hey!" He started those rumors, damn it!

Madge's mother just pats Haymitch's stubble covered cheek. "He would be scratching more if he had crabs, dear." She smiles at Gale, "I'm sure you're very clean."

It was one of the oddest compliments he'd ever received. Gale isn't sure, is he supposed to say thank you?

She isn't finished though. "I warned Madge about the white stuff that gets under the fores-"

Haymitch grabs her and covers her mouth, "No, 'Tilda."

For the first time, and probably the last time, Gale is grateful for Haymitch.

Madge seems mute with horror for a few seconds before she finds her voice, "Mom, I'm sure Gale is perfectly aware of his own anatomy."

Her mother pulls the hand from her face, smiling softly, "I'm sure he is, love, but you weren't."

Madge's blush intensifies. She crosses her arms and looks from the scene.

Gale grimaces, he may have to deal with his brother's inappropriateness, Posy's insistence on him providing her with a new baby, in new and impossible ways, but at least his mother wasn't giving him unsolicited information on the hygiene habits of the opposite sex.

Rory opens his mouth, no doubt to inform Madge of the more delicate details of male anatomy her mother may have missed, but Gale shoots him a look, letting him know if he so much as uttered the word 'penis' Gale would remove his.

Madge's mother thinks for a second, "And I warned her about pulling out." She looks at Gale, the picture of calm, but with a firmer tone than he'd ever heard from her, "You have condoms, dear. You should use them. Though if I had, I wouldn't have my little Madge."

Wow. Gale needed to know about Madge's parents' sex life about as much as he needed to know about his own.

He tries not to look at Madge, but he does. She's pale, wide eyed and petrified.

"'Tilda!" Haymitch's eyes are scrunched shut. "You don't tell kids stuff like that."

Her mother looks baffled. "Why not?"

"You just don't."

She wrinkles her nose, "It isn't bad. If-"

Haymitch covers her mouth again, "You've done enough damage."

Her mother shakes her head, makes a slight face from behind his hand. She pulls it down and beams out at them all. "Madge and I brought fudge. Would anyone like some?"

Gale quickly shakes his head, "I need to…go."

He needs to go home, get Vick and Rory away from Madge's mother and her strange advice. And dunk his head in the rainwater barrel. And possibly strangle Rory…no,definitely strangle Rory.

He moves toward the door, but not fast enough.

Vick, who'd tilted his head, looked a little confused, "What's pulling out?"

Gale really can't catch a break.

Rory, smiling smugly, decides to offer some more of his less than helpful knowledge.

"When their doing it, when they finish, well, right before the guy does, he-"

Before he can finish, Gale has him in headlock. Vick, though, seems to have gotten the idea. His eyes widen in understanding and he nods.

Madge has covered her face with her hands and her mother is nodding thoughtfully, clearly impressed with Rory's unfortunate knowledge of archaic birth control practices.

"We're leaving." Gale needs to get Rory and Vick out of there. Between them and Madge's mother, he isn't sure who is the more embarrassing.

Dragging a struggling Rory, Gale gets out the door.

"What is wrong with you?" Gale asks through gritted teeth. Rory and Haymitch could form a club, 'People who love slowly driving Gale Hawthorne insane'.

"Helping," Rory rasps, laughing with Gale's arm still firmly around his neck.

The door behind them opens, Vick pops out, followed by a flushed Madge.

Rory slams his heel into Gale's toe, catching him off guard, and escaping. He gasps and wheezes for a second while Gale curses and hops away.

"Hey, Madge," Rory giggles for a second. He obviously hasn't had his fill of being an enormous pain in the ass for the day. "Did you know twins come from buttsex?"

Vick rolls his eyes, not really catching on to what his brother is trying to do, "It does not. Posy doesn't know any better, Rory."

"Maybe she's onto something." Rory grins, "After Gale makes sure your ovulating you two can test it out."

Madge, who is apparently trying not to feed into Rory's attempts at annoying Gale by ignoring the suggestion concerning their nonexistent sex life, asks a foolish question, one that will only lead to bad places.

"And how exactly is he going to see if I'm ovulating?"

She seems to sense she's made a mistake the moment the question passes her lips, because she covers her mouth, looks a little horrified.

Rory, on the other hand, looks delighted. He lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers, "Don't you remember? He's going to help you find your cervix. If it feels like lips, you're fertile, Myrtle."

Madge goes scarlet.

"Rory!"

Why can't he just shut his mouth and think things instead of saying them out loud?

Gale lunges for his brother. This is it, he's done with him and his unsubtle innuendo. He misses catching Rory's collar by a fingertip, letting him slip by.

"If Madge turns up carrying a couple of melons that aren't in her bra, I'll know you took my advice!"

Rory runs off, giggling.

Gale thinks about chasing him, but doesn't. He shares a room with the little bastard, he can run, but he can't hide. He'll pay for all this sooner or later.

When he turns back, Vick is shaking his head.

"I wouldn't test it out." He gives Madge an incredibly serious look. "The butt isn't connected to the vagina. It wouldn't work."

Madge looks like she might say something, like 'yeah, I'm aware of that Vick' but she just grimaces and nods. As much as Gale appreciates how patient she is with his brother, sometimes he wishes she would just tell him he needs to be quiet. It would've saved them all some embarrassment.

Vick makes a face, "And why would people want to stick anything in there? Wouldn't that hurt?" He looks at Gale, "I don't think that would release the en-dor-phins like the other way."

Gale presses his fingers to his eyes. Both his brothers need new things to focus on.

"Vick," he tries to smile, but he just can't. "Why don't we head home?"

With a nod, Vick turns to Madge, who quickly shifts, keeping his brother from burying his face in her chest when he goes in for his hug. "Bye, Madge."

He races off, not even waiting for Gale.

Madge turns to Gale and grimaces slightly, "Sorry about my mother."

He rolls his eyes, "Sorry about my brothers."

She shrugs, "They're kids, she's just…"

Her hands wave vaguely. There are no words for what her mother is.

She looks back at the house. "What were you two fighting about?"

My dirty, dirty mind.

Gale shrugs, "Him being a dick."

It was true enough.

She snorts, "I can see that." Her mouth turns up. "You shouldn't let him egg you on, about anything."

He feels a little guilty that she assumes it's Haymitch who started the fight, but also a little happy with her faith in him. She doesn't just accept that he's as big an asshole as he is, despite how he's been to her in the past.

He feels a glimmer of mischief bubble up in him. "So why were you and your mother discussing my penis and its foreskin?"

Her face flushes, "You've met her, what do you think?" She makes a face, "She asked me if you were, you know, and I didn't even know what that was, and, well, that's where that all started."

Gale thinks about his recent long nights, Rory and his painfully detailed descriptions of Madge's underwear, her foolishness in letting him in her room unsupervised, and decides she deserves a little realism in her dreams.

"Do you want to know?"

Madge frowns, not seeming to understand what he's talking about.

"If I'm circumc-"

She covers his mouth, much like Haymitch had done to her mother.

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence."

He smiles under her hand before reaching up and pulling it down.

"Would you rather just see it?"

Her eyes close and she sighs, "Believe it or not, Gale, not every girl is as eager to see your thing as you are to show it off."

"You're just a prude. Look, I can describe it for you. I have this little mole-"

She covers his mouth again. Her lips twitch as she tries to glare at him, "If you don't stop I'll get Mr. Abernathy out here and let him castrate you."

He gives her a small glare as he pulls her hand down once more, "If he cuts off my testicles you're explaining to Posy why I can't put anymore babies in you."

Madge cringes, "That was so embarrassing."

"Yeah, she wants twins you know?" She looks up, a little confused, and Gale smirks, "I told her if you'd stop swallowing the babies she'd get triplets."

Her mouth drops, but she quickly closes it, narrowing her eyes, "Not even in your dreams, Gale Hawthorne."

Well, not always, he thinks.

Gale can't stop himself, she's so pretty in her humiliation. He leans in to her ear, "You never know. I have a very vivid imagination."

Madge pulls back, her eyes are a little dark, shadowed in the yellow of Haymitch's porch light. "I bet you do."

He can smell her shampoo again, feel the heat from her breath on his skin. It wouldn't take much to just lean a bit more in kiss her, pull her to him and carry her off. He really shouldn't be this close to her, shouldn't be letting his eyes memorize the curve of her lips and the swell of her breasts for more torture during the night.

He's lusting after her and he shouldn't. She's his friend, something he never thought he'd say, and he doesn't want to hurt her. As pretty as he thinks she is, as infinitely patient as she is with his brothers, as much as she clearly likes him, he doesn't feel the same way.

He's certain of it.

He's positive.

She deserves better.

It takes him a second to realize he's been staring at her lips for too long. He leans back, swaying his back and looking out at the darkening sky.

"Guess I should get home, catch up with Vick."

"Yeah," she nods, a little too vigorously, her eyes shining with slight disappointment.

The silence that follows isn't uncomfortable, but thick. He wishes she were the type of girl he could take to the slag heap and break the tension between them, but then, if she were, he knows he wouldn't like her half as much.

She was a challenge, she was complicated, they were complicated, and he hated and loved it.

Madge's smile flickers, "Weren't you going?"

Gale nods, he should leave, but the shine of her hair has him mesmerized. Without thinking, he reaches out, tucks a loose strand behind her ear. "Yeah."

His fingertips, much too large and much too coarse to be touching someone like her, trace absently along her jaw, to her chin, tipping it up. His thumb brushes against her lips, soft and pink and moist.

His body is moving of its own accord, he's lost control, but in that moment he doesn't care. He just wants to feel the pressure of her lips on his, the crush of her body against his…

"I can see you!"

Haymitch is banging on the window, glaring out at them, jabbing his index and middle finger toward his eyes then to Gale.

Gale's hand drops from Madge's face like he'd been shocked, he jumps from the porch, concentrating on the ground at his feet.

He should thank Haymitch, really he should, he'd almost made a hormone fueled mistake and it would've been Madge that paid.

Her face is inscrutable, but there's a tiny crease between her eyes and her lips are in a pout.

"I'll, uh, see you around."

He takes off at a brisk pace, he needs to get away from her, she's too tempting and he's too weak. If he stays much longer all the rumors of pregnancy will have basis in reality if she's willing.

"Gale?" Madge's soft voice drifts through the air to him. He starts to ignore it, but he just doesn't have it in him.

When he turns she's behind him, she must've run and caught him. She bites her lip.

"If-do you think, maybe, in another life, we could be something? That it could be more than flirting and stupid family conversations?"

He wishes they could be something more now, but he knows that's impractical. There's Katniss, whatever was going on between them, and he can't put Madge in that mess. It's not fair.

Madge looks so hopeful, for something as silly as a hypothetical life that has no chance of happening. Gale can't break that look though. He just can't.

"Yeah, in another life." He swallows thickly. "See you around, Madge."

Her smile is small, a little sad. "See you around, Gale."

#######

Gale wakes and nuzzles deeper into his human pillow. It giggles, begins running its fingers through his hair.

"We need to get up," a soft voice tells him.

He groans. Getting out of this bed isn't on his itinerary for the day, maybe for the entire weekend. His face buries deeper into his pillow.

Despite his reluctance, a high wailing erupts from the room next door, and he knows he's going to have to get up. Damn.

Madge squirms out from under him, stealing all her warmth as she goes, softly padding across the wood floor and out the door. The wailing stops after a few minutes and Gale rolls out of bed, following Madge's path out the door and down the hall.

When Gale peeks around the corner he finds her standing with a bundle in her arms. She's cooing at it, bobbing up and down, gently lulling it back to sleep.

"He sick?"

That would be Gale's luck, the baby being sick during his weekend.

"No, just wanted his mommy," Madge rubs her nose against the baby's cheek, gives him a kiss.

That was something Gale and his son had in common at the moment, wanting Madge. It was a battle Gale routinely lost to the little rugrat.

He puts his arms around her waist, rests his chin on her shoulder and glares down at the runt, now sleepily chewing on his hand.

"He's a manipulative little shit, isn't he?" Gale reaches his hand around and pokes the baby's chubby little cheek. "You are cutting into my mommy time."

Madge snorts, "You can go see your mommy anytime you want."

He huffs, "Very funny."

She goes back to humming, swaying with Gale's arms around her.

"He's asleep. Put him down and run," Gale whispers.

Madge nods, pulls away and starts to put the baby back in the crib, but as soon as he senses his mother about to make an escape, he lets a creaky little noise out, threatening to wail again. She quickly snatches him back to her chest, begins rocking again.

The little punk was taking after its Uncle Rory already, plotting against Gale. Shit.

Gale watches as Madge sinks into the rocking chair and begins talking nonsense to their son.

He walks over and scoops the baby from her. "Gale!"

"Listen, if you ever want siblings, you better let mommy and daddy have some alone time, kiddo."

Madge snorts, "Gale, this one is going to be out of diapers before we have another, and that's not happening anytime soon. He's just five months old."

If that's a milestone for having another, or more accurately, practicing for trying for another one, Gale will have him potty trained by a year, a year and a half tops.

"Plus, if he sees how you and your siblings act, he may want to stay an only child."

Bullshit. He and his siblings were amazing. Except Rory. And occasionally Vick. Posy was a little suspect at times too…

Gale gives the baby a hard look as it gurgles, smiling up at him. He dips down and kisses his son's head, whispering, "Please, be good. You get her all week, I just get weekends."

They seem to come to an agreement, the baby's eyes drift close, so Gale gently puts him back in the crib before grabbing Madge and hauling her out of the room.

As soon as their out the door, he has her against the wall, kissing her breathless. He presses a line of kisses down her neck and back up, blowing a hot breath into her ear and making her giggle.

"So…about that next one," he grins, "can we try for twins?"

She pulls back and gives him a glare, "No."

He lifts her up, carrying her bridal style, "You just aren't any fun, you know?"

Madge tangles her hands in his hair, pulls him closer, "No?" She gives him a wicked grin, "Do you still want to release a few endorphins? I mean, even if there's no procreation happening?"

Gale growls, tightens his grip on her.

Someday, he'd thank Vick for his meddling and research on female anatomy.

It was coming in very handy these days.

Even if it had taken a Rebellion, a change of Districts, and building another life to put it to use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: That's it! This story is over! Hope it wasn't too disappointing an ending for everyone. It was a real pain to write this last part, and so hopefully it was still funny and the end was satisfying, though I've warned everyone to keep expectations low with me. Thanks a million times over to everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting this up on here. Maybe I'll get some other stories up when I have the time.


End file.
